Guide To The 2026-26 NHL Season And Milan Olympics: How To Watch
The NHL season starts Tuesday night with a tripleheader that consists of the Florida Panthers raising a Stanley Cup banner for a 2nd consecutive year and Mike Sullivan making his New york city Rangers training launching versus the Pittsburgh Penguins team he invested much of the past years with.
This is the last 82-game season before the schedule expands to 84 each for each of the league's 32 teams starting in 2026-27. It's also anticipated to be the last October start before training camp and exhibit play shrink and opening night gets moved up to late September.
The league will take a two-week break in February so gamers can contend at the Olympics in Milan.
The Panthers are aiming to become the very first NHL group to threepeat because the New York Islanders won 4 champions in a row from 1980-83. They likely will not have captain and leading center Aleksander Barkov all season after surgery to fix torn ligaments in his ideal knee from a noncontact injury throughout training school.
NHL players are back in the Olympics for the first time because 2014 when Canada won its 2nd consecutive gold medal. It's the very first full-fledged worldwide competition including the world's best since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. The 4 Nations Face-Off with the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland supplied a taste of the kind of quality and pace that can be expected.
Connor McDavid, commonly considered the video game's best player, is still going after the 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 deal rate of $12.5 million annually over 2 years.
Lights illuminate 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 BetMGM Sportsbook to hoist 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 video games nationally in the U.S., with Sportsnet as the rightsholder in Canada.
There are 100 special video games in between ESPN, ABC, ESPN+ and Hulu, including all 3 on opening night and the Stadium Series when Tampa Bay hosts Boston outdoors at the home of the NFL's Buccaneers. ESPN also has the Stanley Cup Final in June.
TNT has 72 video 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 Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins.
More than 900 games will take location between October and Feb. 4, including 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 begins 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 last day of the routine 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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