The NHL on ESPN is a presentation of National Hockey League (NHL) games produced by ESPN. They have been shown on its various platforms in the United States, including ESPN itself, ABC, ESPN+, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN DTC. Since 2021, games have been broadcast under the ESPN Hockey Night branding or ESPN+ Hockey Night branding.
ESPN first televised NHL games in the season by sub-contracting rights from individual franchises. After the NHL shifted to only having one exclusive rights holder, ESPN acquired the NHL's national television rights in 1985 to replace USA Network (which had previously aired NHL games in parallel with ESPN). ESPN lost the rights to SportsChannel America in 1988.
ESPN regained the NHL's U.S. television rights from 1992 through the 2003–04 season, with the coverage branded under the blanket title ESPN National Hockey Night. In 1999, ESPN renewed its contract through the 2003–04 NHL season, with ABC replacing Fox as the broadcast television rights holder. In 2004, ESPN and the league agreed to a one-year extension worth $60 million, with an option for an additional year.
The 2004–05 season was canceled due to a lockout, thus nullifying the contract. When the lockout ended, the league's cable rights were obtained by Outdoor Life Network, the precursor of NBCSN.
On March 10, 2021, the NHL announced that it would return to ESPN networks under a seven-year contract beginning in the 2021–22 season. ESPN's subscription streaming service, ESPN+, provides the majority of the network's regular-season NHL coverage, carrying a package of exclusive national games, and holding streaming rights to all out-of-market games, replacing the NHL.tv service. ESPN also broadcasts a package of games. ESPN and ESPN2 share coverage of the Stanley Cup playoffs with TNT and TBS, which also includes exclusive rights to the Stanley Cup Final for ABC in even-numbered years.
Like other U.S. national NHL broadcasts, NHL on ESPN games may be available in Canada on Sportsnet or streamed on Sportsnet+. This is as part of a 12-year agreement with the NHL that lasts to the end of the 2025-26 season (it was later extended another 12 years to 2037–38 season), subject to blackout restrictions.
History Early years: 1979–1982 and 1985–1988 ESPN initially covered the NHL during the , and seasons by making deals with individual teams. This included 11 Hartford Whalers home broadcasts in 1980–81 and 25 the following year. Branded as ESPN Hockey, Sam Rosen, Barry Landers, and Joe Boyle were employed as play-by-play announcers. Pete Stemkowski was the lead color commentator. During the opening round of the 1982 playoffs, ESPN broadcast game four of the series between the New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins, and game two of the series between the Minnesota North Stars and Chicago Black Hawks, with Sam Rosen and Pete Stemkowski on the call. In the season prior, the pair called games three and four of the playoff series between the St. Louis Blues and Pittsburgh Penguins.
During this time, USA Network also broadcast NHL games. To prevent overexposure, the NHL granted only one network exclusive rights. In April 1982, USA outbid ESPN for the NHL's American national television cable package ($8 million for two years). In 1984, the NHL asked ESPN for a bid, but then gave USA the right to match it, which it did.
After the 1984–85 season, the NHL Board of Governors chose to have USA Network and ESPN submit sealed bids. ESPN won by bidding nearly $25 million for three years, about twice as much as USA had been paying. The contract called for ESPN to air up to 33 regular-season games each season as well as the NHL All-Star Game and the Stanley Cup playoffs. The network chose Dan Kelly and Sam Rosen to be the network's first play-by-play announcers. Mickey Redmond and Brad Park were selected to be the analysts, while Tom Mees and Jim Kelly were chosen to serve as studio hosts. ESPN aired ESPN Hockey Night in America on Sundays, but also aired select midweek telecasts. ESPN aired its first game, an opening-night matchup between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers, on October 10, 1985.
At the end of the season, ESPN lost the NHL television rights to SportsChannel America, which paid $51 million ($17 million per year) over three years, more than double what ESPN had paid ($24 million) for the previous three years. SportsChannel America paid $5 million for rights to a fourth NHL season. It was only available in a few major markets, absent from Detroit, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, and it reached a third of the households that ESPN did at the time. In , the first year of the deal, SportsChannel America was available in only 7 million homes, compared to ESPN's reach of 50 million. By the 1991–92 season, ESPN was available in 60.5 million homes, whereas SportsChannel America was available in 25 million.
Second return to ESPN and ABC's involvement: 1992–1999 When the SportsChannel deal ended in 1992, the league returned to ESPN for another contract that would pay $80 million over five years. Until the 2001–02 NHL season, weekly regular-season games were broadcast on Sundays (between NFL and baseball seasons), Wednesdays, and Fridays. They were titled Sunday/Wednesday/Friday Night Hockey. Before 1999, these telecasts were non-exclusive, meaning they were blacked out in the regions of the competing teams, and an alternate game was shown instead.
During the Stanley Cup playoffs, ESPN and ESPN2 provided almost nightly coverage, often carrying games on both channels concurrently. Games in the first two rounds were non-exclusive, while telecasts in the Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Final were exclusive (except in 1993 and 1994). Beginning in the 1993–94 season, up to five games per week were also shown on ESPN2, branded as NHL Fire on Ice.
Sister broadcast network ABC also aired NHL games during the first two seasons of the contract, in the league's first network television broadcasts since NBC's previous contract in the 1970s. In the first season, this included selected playoff games, and later expanded to include a package of regular-season games in the second season. These telecasts were produced by ESPN and were officially considered to be time-buys on ABC by ESPN Inc. This arrangement ended in the 1994–95 season, when the NHL began a new contract with Fox as its broadcast television partner.
Final years, and including ABC full-time: 1999–2004
In 1998, ESPN renewed its contract through 2004 for $600 million, beginning in the 1999–2000 season. Under the new contract, ESPN was permitted two exclusive telecasts per team per season, while ABC would also return as broadcast television rights holder to replace Fox.
ESPN's terms of the deal included up to 200 games a year split between ESPN and ESPN2, the All-Star Skills Challenge, the majority of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final. ABC's terms included rights to the NHL All-Star Game, four to five weeks of regular-season action, with three games a week, six weekends of Stanley Cup Playoff action, and the rest of the Stanley Cup Final.
Beginning in the 1999–2000 season, ESPN was permitted two exclusive telecasts per team per season. When ESPN started broadcasting NBA games on Wednesday and Friday nights in 2002, the weekly hockey broadcasts were moved to Thursday and they were renamed to ESPN Thursday Night Hockey.
Following the 2003–04 season, ESPN was only willing to renew its contract for two additional years at $60 million per year. ABC refused to televise the Stanley Cup Final in prime time, suggesting that the Finals games it would telecast be played on weekend afternoons (including a potential game seven). Disney executives later conceded that they overpaid for the 1999–2004 deal, so the company's offer to renew the television rights was lower in 2004.
Before the 2004–05 lockout, the NHL had reached two separate deals with NBC (which would replace ABC as the NHL's national U.S. broadcast television partner) and ESPN. ESPN offered the NHL $60 million to renew its contract, carrying about 40 games (only 15 of which would be during the regular season), mostly on ESPN2. However, ESPN opted out of the contract following the lockout, and the NHL reopened negotiations. Comcast offered over $200 million for a three-season deal to air games on OLN (later rebranded as Versus to reflect its expansion to mainstream sports), which ESPN declined to match, effectively giving NBC Sports exclusive national broadcasting rights to the league. After Comcast acquired a majority stake in NBC Universal in 2011, it renewed both the broadcast television and cable rights to the league via NBC Sports through the 2020–21 season.
World Cup of Hockey: 2016
Long after losing their broadcasting rights to the NHL, ESPN served as the U.S. broadcaster of the NHL-backed 2016 World Cup of Hockey, as NBC declined due to programming conflicts. For the tournament, ESPN named Steve Levy and Barry Melrose as the lead broadcast team, while adding Kevin Weekes from NHL Network, Leah Hextall from Sportsnet, NHL Hall of Famers Chris Chelios and Brett Hull to their roster. ESPN also named NHL Hall of Famers Chris Chelios and Brett Hull as their studio analyst.
Additionally, ESPN brought back St. Louis Blues color commentator Darren Pang, who was the network's secondary color commentator from 1999 to 2004, for their coverage, as an ice-level reporter for select games. John Saunders, who had hosted ESPN and ABC's NHL coverage from 1987 to 1988 and again from 1992 to 2004, was tapped to lead the studio coverage. However, due to his unexpected death a month after ESPN announced their complete roster, Cohn, who was originally going to do features for ESPN, was tapped to replace Saunders.
ESPN+ involvement: 2018–present After its 2018 launch, ESPN's subscription streaming service ESPN+ added an NHL studio program. This program has a free daily regular-season game courtesy of NHL.tv (operated by Disney subsidiary BAMTech), and includes a Stanley Cup Playoffs documentary series (replacing one produced as part of Showtime's All Access franchise). As part of the NHL.tv deal, ESPN+ started a night-time show, In the Crease, hosted by Linda Cohn and Barry Melrose.
Third return to ESPN and ABC: 2021–present In the years before the end of NBC's latest contract with the NHL, the league explored options for splitting its national broadcast rights, similar to the television deals of the NFL, NBA, and MLB. This included selling packages to streaming services, aiming to maximize the value of its broadcast rights. On March 10, 2021, Disney, ESPN, and the NHL announced that a seven-year agreement was reached for ESPN to hold the first half of its new media rights beginning in the 2021–22 season:
ESPN holds rights to at least 25 exclusive national games per season, which can air on either ESPN, ESPN2, or ABC, including exclusive rights to opening night games. All ABC games and select ESPN games stream on ESPN+ and, since 2025, Disney+. ABC aired the Thanksgiving Showdown in 2021. Up to 75 exclusive national games per season are streamed exclusively on ESPN+, and are not carried on linear television. These are also available to Hulu subscribers and later became available for Disney+ subscribers on December 5, 2024. ESPN+ streams all out-of-market games, as well as on-demand versions of all nationally televised games. These became available for Disney+ subscribers on December 4, 2024. ESPN holds rights to All-Star Weekend, with the Skills Competition airing on ESPN, and the All-Star Game airing on ABC. ESPN has held rights to the NHL Stadium Series since 2023, depending on scheduling logistics with TNT. ESPN holds rights to the NHL entry draft.