Amazon Prime Video to broadcast games locally for six NHL teams, including Carolina

September 3, 2026 - 00:33

Prime Video is stepping deeper into the hockey broadcast world. The streaming service will now serve as the exclusive local home for six NHL franchises, a move that reshapes how fans in those markets watch their teams. The league confirmed the multiyear arrangement, which includes the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes.

Beyond Carolina, the deal covers the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Colorado Avalanche, Edmonton Oilers, and Seattle Kraken. For fans in those regions, this means regular-season games will no longer appear on traditional regional sports networks. Instead, they will need a Prime membership to catch the action. The shift marks another major step in the slow decline of cable-dependent broadcasting.

The move is not entirely new. Prime Video already held local rights for the Kraken and the Oilers in recent seasons. This expansion, however, brings a much larger audience under one digital roof. The league sees this as a way to meet viewers where they are already spending time, rather than forcing them to keep pricey cable packages.

For the Hurricanes, the timing is notable. Coming off a championship run, the team has a growing fan base. Having games on a platform as widely used as Prime removes some barriers for casual viewers. It also gives the league a chance to test how well a national streaming giant can handle the day-to-day grind of local coverage.

No financial terms were disclosed. The games will be produced with local broadcast feeds, meaning the usual announcers and pregame shows will remain in place. The key difference is the delivery method. Fans will access games through the Prime Video app on smart TVs, phones, or other devices.

This is another sign that the old model of finding your team on a dedicated sports channel is fading. Streaming platforms are now competing hard for live sports rights, and hockey is a valuable piece of that puzzle. Whether this leads to more teams joining Prime in the future remains to be seen, but the league is clearly betting that digital distribution is the path forward.