My condolences. There's no way I was ever following this given some of the vitriol you get from people on the internet with a particular viewpoint on this but from what I've read this morning, it's just been a complete shambles.
If you're in the UK, NHL TV remains the best way to watch the NHL. £86 for a full season of streaming every game, regular season and playoffs, whenever you want it. They seem to make accessing coverage of games as hard as possible wherever you are, but we seem to get a really good deal.