NHL’s oldest rivals meet for another showdown today, as the Toronto Maple Leafs head to Bell Centre to take on the Montreal Canadiens. Though the rivalry isn’t nearly as fierce as usual, with Montreal dragging near the bottom of the East standings, it’s still always a must-watch game whenever these compatriots do battle against one another.
The game is about to start, at 7:00 p.m. ET, and will be televised on NHL Network in the United States. If you don’t have cable or don’t have that channel, there’s no shortage of options for watching a live stream of the game.
If you’re looking for some free options, you can find those in the next section. However, if you’re looking for the cheapest way to watch NHL Network long-term, then Sling TV is what you want.
The “Sling Orange” channel plan plus the “Sports Extra” add-on will get you NHL Network, as well as the NHL Network alternate channel, the ESPN channels, TNT and TBS. Not only is it the cheapest streaming service with those channels at $51 per month, but it’s currently on sale for just $31 for the first month.
And if you want even more value, Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, Starz, AMC+ and MGM+ are all available as add-ons, and they’re all free for the first month.
If you just want to watch for free–no deals, no long-term benefits, no strings, just free, plain and simple–then you have two options at your disposal.
Option No. 1: The Fubo “Pro” channel plan plus the “Sports Plus with NFL RedZone” add-on will get you NHL Network, as well as about 200-plus other live-TV channels. You can watch for free for seven days when signing up, and then it will be $91 per month if you don’t cancel.
Option No. 2: DirecTV Stream has four different channel plans, but only “Ultimate” and “Premier” have NHL Network. Fortunately, you can pick any package you want with for your free five-day trial, but note that “Ultimate” is $120 per month if you let the trial end.
If you want the cheapest way to watch the most NHL as possible, ESPN+ is a no-brainer. At just $11 per month, you’ll get every single out-of-market NHL game. This includes games that are on NHL Network, such as this one. And since the local markets for this particular game are both in Canada, everyone in the US can watch this one live on ESPN+.
Unfortunately there’s no free trial, but you can save some money by either getting ESPN+ for a year for $110, or by bundling it with Hulu and Disney+ for $15 per month. With hundreds of NHL games, as well as other live sports, 30-for-30 documentaries and more original on-demand content, the price is well worth it no matter what option you choose.
All of these options, of course, will only work for watching the game if you’re located in the United States. That is, unless your network “thinks” you’re in the United States. That’s where a virtual private network (VPN) comes into play, as it masks your IP address and connects you to a server in a different country, allowing you to access online content that is restricted to that country even if you’re not actually physically there.
NordVPN would be our choice, as it doesn’t limit your bandwidth speeds and it works with all of the aforementioned streaming services. While it doesn’t have a typical free trial, it does offer your money back within 30 days if you decide you don’t want it.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.