NHL streaming options: Untangling the 2024-2025 mess

We’re less than couple of weeks from the start of hockey season, and the streaming situation looks just as complicated as baseball was over the summer.

As pay TV subscriptions decline and the regional sports business model collapses, NHL teams are moving in different directions. Some are spinning up new regional sports streaming services, while others are partnering with broadcasters to distribute local games for free over the air. Others are still clinging to the regional sports model, requiring bloated pay TV packages with no cheaper standalone alternatives.

It’s a mess, and it doesn’t help that the information you need can be scattered all over the place. Just like during baseball season, I’ve put it all back together again. Here are all the NHL streaming and over-the air options for the 2024-2025 season:

NHL in-market streaming options: An overview for 2024-2025

Below is a chart showing every National Hockey League team, its corresponding local channel or regional sports network, the live TV streaming services that carry those channels, and whether a standalone alternatives exist. (You can also view a version of this chart on Google Sheets.)

Note that these options only apply for locally-televised, in-market games. They won’t help for games that air on national TV, including most playoff coverage.

What about nationally-televised games?

For the past few years, NHL TV rights for nationally-televised games—including most playoff coverage—have been carved up between Disney (ESPN, ABC) and Warner Bros. Discovery (TNT).

Those channels are included with several live TV streaming services, including YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV, and DirecTV Stream. Sling TV carries ESPN, but is missing ABC in all but a handful of markets.

Alternatively, Warner’s sports coverage is currently included with Max, which starts at $10 per month with ads or $17 per month without. Warner says it will eventually charge an extra $10 per month for live sports, but hasn’t turned on the paywall as of September 2024.

As for ESPN, most of this year’s nationally-televised games will stream on ESPN+, which costs $11 per month, or $15 per month as part of the Disney Bundle. (Those prices are increasing to $12 per month and $17 per month, respectively, on October 17. Some games will be reserved for ESPN’s cable channel, which is not included with ESPN+ and is not available without a live TV streaming service, though a standalone streaming version of the channel is coming in 2025. You can see ESPN’s hockey broadcast schedule here.

Out-of-market NHL games

ESPN+ has streamed out-of-market NHL games exclusively since 2021. That means if your favorite team plays in a different market from where you live, you can watch without navigating the regional sports mess.

That said, you’ll still run into blackouts for games that are televised nationally, necessitating some of the other options mentioned above. Even when streaming options seem straightforward, complications have a way of arising.

For more help navigating the streaming sports landscape, check out these useful tools. And consider signing up for my Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter to get money-saving streaming advice every Friday.