The concept of "Showdown" involved 20 of the NHL's greatest players (16 shooters and four goaltenders) going head-to-head in a taped penalty shot competition. After the NHL left NBC in 1975, "Showdown" continued to be seen on "Hockey Night in Canada" and local television broadcasts of U.S.-based NHL teams. When Game 7 of the 1975 playoff series between Pittsburgh and the New York Islanders took place, Bill Hewitt's Toronto Maple Leafs were already eliminated, the team of Danny Gallivan and Dick Irvin Jr. were prepping for the Montreal-Buffalo series and Brian McFarlane was assisting NBC for their Game 1 coverage of the aforementioned Montreal-Buffalo series the next day (April 26). Starting in the 1978 playoffs, the NHL Network began simulcasting many games with "Hockey Night in Canada". In these games, Dan Kelly, who was the NHL Network's lead play-by-play announcer, was assigned to do play-by-play along with "HNIC" color commentators. This for example, happened in Game 7 of the quarterfinal series between the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Islanders (April 29), where Kelly teamed up with Brian McFarlane. The entire 1979 Stanley Cup Finals between the Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers was simulcast as well. NBC did not broadcast the sixth game of the 1975 Finals, in which the Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Buffalo Sabres to clinch their second consecutive championship, played in prime time on a Tuesday night. Had the Finals gone to a seventh game, NBC would have pre-empted its prime time lineup on a Thursday night to carry that deciding contest. But by that time, the network had informed the NHL that unless ratings for the Finals spiked, it would drop the sport, which it did at the end of the season. After being dropped by NBC after the season, the NHL had no national television contract in the United States. In response to this, the league put together a network of independent stations covering approximately 55% of the country. Games typically aired on Monday nights (beginning at 8 p.m. ET) or Saturday afternoons. The package was offered to local stations with no rights fee. Profits would be derived from the advertising, which was about evenly split between the network and the local station. The Monday night games were often billed as The NHL Game of the Week. Viewers in New York City, Buffalo, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Los Angeles got the "Game of the Week" on a different channel than their local team's games.