The 2023-2024 NHL Season is underway. This guide will explain how you can watch your favorite NHL team’s game for this season, whether you live in the team’s TV market or not.
How To Stream NHL Games
Later in this guide, there is a section that links to information on watching any NHL team this season. But first, I wanted to provide an overview of how to watch NHL games if you don’t have cable.
If you live in the TV Market of your favorite team, you will need access to your local regional sports network for most of your team’s games. You will also need TNT, ESPN, and possibly ESPN+ for exclusive games.
If your team is on your local NBC Sports regional network, I recommend Hulu + Live TV, as they provide NBC Sports RSNs, ESPN, TNT, and ESPN+ for $76.99 per month.
Otherwise, DIRECTV STREAM’s “Choice” plan has every local regional sports network (RSN) except NBC Sports Philidelphia. The plan also provides TNT and ESPN, which airs nationally exclusive NHL games. The Choice plan costs $108.99 per month after a 5-day free trial. The only games you will miss are games for which ESPN+ has exclusive rights. Subscribe to ESPN+ for $10.99 per month and you can watch those games through the ESPN app.
For those living outside their favorite team’s television market, ESPN+ will provide access to every game from every team playing outside your TV market unless it is part of a nationally exclusive broadcast on ESPN, NHL Network, or TNT.
Combining ESPN+ with Sling TV’s orange plan with the Sports Add-on provides ESPN+, ESPN, TNT, and NHL Network. This combination costs around $65 per month, but if your favorite team comes to town and plays the NHL team for your local market, it will be blacked out on ESPN+.
The only way to get around that would be to have access to your local regional sports network which means carrying a streaming service with your local team’s regional network. Basically, follow the instructions above as if you lived inside your teams market. Just make sure you carry ESPN+, either through Hulu+Live TV if your local team’s channel is an NBC Sports RSN or through a direct subscription to ESPN+ if you have to carry DIRECTV STREAM for the non-NBC RSN.
You can see a more in-depth review of these streaming services by clicking the appropriate link from the list below.
If you are a fan of one of the Canadian teams and you live in Canada, you will need Sportsnet+ or TSN Direct depending on the team you follow. Check your team’s guide in the next section for specific instructions on watching their games.
How To Watch Any NHL Team Without Cable
For the 2023-2024 NHL season, I put together a guide specific to each team. The articles below will explain how to watch that team for fans who live both inside and outside that team’s TV market.
Streaming Services That Stream NHL Games
The following services are what you want to consider this season for watching the NHL.
ESPN+ (Sign Up): ESPN+ allows you to watch every 2023-2024 NHL season game as long as the game isn’t nationally broadcast on TNT or ESPN and the team from your local market isn’t playing in the game. The streaming services only cost $10.99 per month for over 1000 televised NHL games this season. The nationally televised games that will be blacked out on ESPN+ this season are:
- roughly 25 exclusively airing on linear ESPN
- 60 games airing on TNT
- and about 90 games airing on the NHL Network
With the exception of your local market team, on average, you should be able to watch about 70 of each team’s 82 games on ESPN+ this season.
DIRECTV STREAM (5-Day Free Trial): The DIRECTV STREAM “Choice” plan carries every US regional sports network except for NBC Sports Philidelphia. If you live in any other US market, pairing DIRECTV STREAM with ESPN+ will let you catch every NHL game this season. DIRECTV STREAM caries ABC, ESPN, and TNT for nationally televised NHL Games along with your regional sports network on their “Choice plan” for $108.99 per month. NHL Network is also available, but you need to upgrade to their “Ultimate” channel plan for $119.99 per month. Cancel any time. If you cancel within your 5 day free trial period, you will not be charged.
Hulu + Live TV (check promotions): Carries every NBC regional network if you live in those markets. Hulu + Live TV is the only streaming service to include ESPN+, which provides you access to every NHL game this season as long as it isn’t on your local, regional network or exclusively broadcast on TNT, ABC, or ESPN. But you don’t need to worry about that, as Hulu + Live TV carries ABC, ESPN, and TNT. Unfortunately, Hulu doesn’t carry NHL Network, which will carry some games this season. Hulu + Live Costs $76.99 per month. You can cancel at any time.
YouTube TV (1-week free trial): Carries NBC regional networks if you live in the broadcast market of the channel. YouTube TV carries ABC, ESPN, and TNT for nationally televised NHL Games. YouTube TV costs $72.99 per month after a free trial. YouTube TV doesn’t carry NHL Network, which will carry up to 90 games this season. Cancel Any time. However, since YouTube doesn’t carry ESPN+, it’s better to go with Hulu + Live TV for NHL games.
Fubo (1-week free trial): Carries all the US based teams regional network if you live in that RSN’s TV market. If you live in those areas, pairing FuboTV with ESPN+ will provide you access to every NHL game this season, except for nationally televised games on TNT (TNT isn’t on fuboTV, but ESPN and ABC are). Fubo costs $74.99 for access to your RSN, ESPN, and ABC. You can add a “Sports Extra Package” for an additional $11 per month and have access to NHL Network. Cancel Any time. Also, be aware there is an additional mandatory $10-$13 per month regional sports fee in addition to the plan’s monthly price.
Bally Sports+ is a direct-to-customer streaming service that carries games of NHL teams that have a Bally Sports Regional Network. Bally Sports+ is currently available on iOS and Android mobile smart devices, along with tvOS (Apple TV), Android TV, and Amazon Fire TV streaming devices and smart TVs. See our article, Is Bally Sports Worth the Price for more details. You can subscribe to Bally Sports+ at BallySportsPlus.com for $189.99 annually or $19.99 each month and live stream NHL games airing on any Bally Sports regional. However, you only get games from the Bally Sports channel in your TV market. If you are outside the intended TV market, you will not see Bally Sports+ available on BallySportsPlus.com or within the Bally Sports app. This service only provides the regional sports channel and won’t have access to all the channels you get with a service that carries Bally Sports and other cable channels like DIRECTV STREAM.
Watch Out-Of-Market NHL Games on ESPN+
The solution for watching out-of-market NHL games in the United States during the 2023-2024 NHL season is ESPN+. The service will carry 1000+ out-of-market NHL games this season. You can also watch these games live or on-demand once the puck drops. ESPN+ is a premium subscription that doesn’t require you to have ESPN. Subscribers to ESPN+ will be able to watch every NHL game live this season with the following exceptions.
- Games where one of the teams playing are from your local TV market. For example. If you live in Detroit, games involving the Redwings are blacked out on ESPN+.
- The game isn’t one of 150 games being broadcast on ESPN, NHL Network, or TNT this season
And even though you can’t watch those games live, you can still watch them on ESPN+ once they air. Here is how the blackout rules affect watching a replay of the games.
- All exclusive ESPN games will be available for replay immediately following the broadcast.
- TNT and NHL Network games will be available 24 hours after the scheduled end time of each match.
- Other blacked-out games will be available for archival viewing on ESPN+ 24 hours after scheduled end times.
ESPN+ is a must-have for hockey fans this season. In addition to the ability to watch over 1000 out-of-market NHL games, ESPN+ will also carry 75 games exclusively with Hulu, 11 games with ABC, and two games on ESPN.
You watch ESPN+ through the ESPN App. To add ESPN+ to your ESPN app, follow these instructions:
- Subscribe to ESPN+
- Download and Open the ESPN app on your mobile or TV device. Supports Roku Players and TVs, Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast, Apple TV, Android, iPhone, Samsung TVs, Xbox, PlayStation, and more.
- Click the Settings Gear in the upper right corner.
- Select ‘Account Information’ then ‘Log Into ESPN Account.’ You should receive an activation code.
- Visit https://espn.com/activate on your phone or laptop and type in the code.
- Log in with your ESPN+ credentials.
- You should then get confirmation that your ESPN+ account is linked and see an ‘ESPN+’ tab in the ESPN app.
An ESPN+ subscription costs only $10.99 per month. There is no contract and you can cancel any time you like. However, you can select a yearly subscription for a discounted rate. In addition to ESPN, Disney also owns Hulu and the Disney+ streaming service. You can get Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ for just $24.99/mo by signing up here! For more information on ESPN+, see our ESPN+ review.
What is Each NHL Team’s RSN
The Regional Sports Network for each NHL team and the streaming services that carry that network are listed in the table below.
