The NHL Playoffs are heating up, and if you’re a hockey fan stuck outside North America (or simply fed up with your cable package), you don’t have to miss a single puck drop.
Streaming the playoffs from the UK is entirely doable, though it does require knowing where to look. The official home for NHL coverage in the United Kingdom is TNT Sports, which holds the broadcast rights and streams games through discovery+. A subscription runs from around £6.99 per month, and they typically show a solid selection of playoff matchups, particularly the later rounds.
For fans who want wall-to-wall coverage, including every single game, ESPN+ in the US is the gold standard. It carries the full playoff slate alongside ABC and TNT broadcasts. The catch? It’s geo-restricted to American users. That’s where a reliable VPN comes in. Services like NordVPN or ExpressVPN let you connect through a US server, making it appear as though you’re browsing from Chicago or Boston rather than Bristol or Belfast.
“Using a VPN for streaming is legal in the UK, though it’s worth checking the terms of service for whichever platform you’re using,” notes digital rights organisation Open Rights Group. Most streaming platforms officially discourage it, but enforcement against individual subscribers is essentially non-existent.
ESPN+ costs around $10.99 per month (roughly £8.70), and you can pay using a US gift card or certain international payment cards if your billing address causes issues. Some fans bundle it with Hulu and Disney+ for $14.99, which softens the blow considerably.
NHL.com also offers its own streaming service, NHL.tv, but frustratingly, playoff games are blacked out on that platform. It’s better suited to the regular season.
Kick-off times are the other challenge. Most games start between midnight and 3am UK time, so either invest in a good thermos of coffee or lean heavily into next-morning replays, which discovery+ and ESPN+ both make available.
With the Conference Finals now approaching, the drama is only going to intensify. Whether your team is still in the hunt or you’re just here for the chaos, the question is simply: how late are you willing to stay up?
