Guide To The 2026-26 NHL Season And Milan Olympics: How To Watch
The NHL season begins Tuesday night with a tripleheader that consists of the Florida Panthers raising a Stanley Cup banner for a second successive year and Mike Sullivan making his New York Rangers training launching versus the Pittsburgh Penguins team he spent much of the past years with.
This is the final 82-game season before the schedule broadens to 84 apiece for each of the league's 32 teams starting in 2026-27. It's likewise expected to be the last October start before training camp and exhibition play shrink and opening night gets gone up to late September.
The league will take a two-week break in February so players can contend at the Olympics in Milan.
The Panthers are looking to become the first NHL group to threepeat given that the New York Islanders won four champions in a row from 1980-83. They likely won't have captain and top center Aleksander Barkov all season after surgical treatment to repair torn ligaments in his right knee from a noncontact injury throughout training camp.
NHL players are back in the Olympics for the very first time because 2014 when Canada won its 2nd consecutive gold medal. It's the first full-fledged global competition including the world's best because the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. The 4 Nations Face-Off with the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland offered a taste of the type of quality and rate that can be anticipated.
Connor McDavid, widely considered the game's best gamer, is still chasing the Stanley Cup in his 11th season in the league. After his future was the talk of the sport, McDavid signed an agreement extension with the Edmonton Oilers on the eve of the season at a bargain rate of $12.5 million each year over 2 years.
Lights light up the ice before an NHL hockey game in between the Seattle Kraken and the Calgary Flames, Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Maddy Grassy)
Edmonton and Vegas are 8-1 co-favorites at to raise the Cup in June. Carolina and Colorado are 17-2, Dallas is 9-1 and Florida and Tampa Bay are each 14-1. The longest shots on the board are reconstructing Chicago and San Jose at 500-1.
ESPN and TNT air games nationally in the U.S., with Sportsnet as the rightsholder in Canada.
There are 100 unique games between ESPN, ABC, ESPN+ and Hulu, consisting of all 3 on opening night and the Stadium Series when Tampa Bay hosts Boston outdoors at the home of the NFL's Buccaneers. ESPN likewise has the Stanley Cup Final in June.
TNT has 72 games, including Washington's season opener with Alex Ovechkin at 897 goals after breaking Wayne Gretzky's record, and the Winter Classic between the Panthers and Rangers on Jan. 2 at the home of Big league Baseball's Miami Marlins.
More than 900 video games will take place in between October and Feb. 4, consisting of Pittsburgh and Nashville playing twice in Sweden in November. The league will then pause for the Olympic break.
The males's hockey competition in Milan starts Feb. 11 with Finland vs. Slovakia and Sweden against host Italy. The gold-medal video game is set for Feb. 22.
NHL play resumes on Feb. 25. The trade due date is March 6 and the final day of the regular season is April 16. The playoffs start April 18 and the last possible day for the Stanley Cup Final is June 21. Free agency begins July 1.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl