Eight Marquee Games Highlight Record-Tying NHL Schedule

The National Hockey League took its summer break quite literally.

Last season ended with one week left in spring, and the new season started Tuesday one week into autumn. Beyond bringing to a close the shortest offseason among the major professional North American sports leagues, the busy opening days kicked off what is already a historic season.

For starters, the NHL opened with just the second September puck drop in league history — and the first in North America. Not since the 2007-08 season also began on September 29 with a game in London between the defending champion Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings has the league ever started a season before October. This year, eight games were scheduled before the month ends, beginning with a five-game opening night on September 29 that features three games in the United States and two in Canada.

The main event was in Raleigh, where the reigning Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes lifted their banner to commemorate their second title but lost in overtime to the team that won the previous two titles, the Florida Panthers.

That game ignited a milestone season for the league that will feature a return to an 84-game schedule, which the league used from 1992 to 1994. Here are other key dates to watch for in the 109th season of action for the NHL:

Outdoor Games

October 25: The Winnipeg Jets host the Montreal Canadiens in the Heritage Classic, the league’s outdoor game that features two Canadian teams. This year’s edition is just the eighth in league history since the first one was held in 2003, and will take place at Princess Auto Stadium, home of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League.

December 31: The annual Winter Classic makes its first stop in Salt Lake City, where the three-year-old Utah Mammoth take on the Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles Stadium. The Mammoth will be making their outdoor game debut, the last of the league’s 32 teams to do so.

February 20, 2027: The NHL Stadium Series pits two teams against one another in a football or baseball venue, and this year it will be at AT&T Stadium outside Dallas, with the Stars hosting the Vegas Golden Knights. This is the first time Jerryworld — the tongue-in-cheek name for the venue that houses the Dallas Cowboys, owned by Jerry Jones — will have hosted an NHL game, but the venue is no stranger to major events. It has already hosted the Super Bowl, the men’s Final Four, and the NBA All-Star Game, and this summer, it welcomed eight FIFA World Cup matches.

Foreign Affairs

The NHL has a strong European following, and has made regular visits across the pond this century. This year the league will have four games overseas, the fifth straight season it has played in Europe during the regular season.

November 12 and November 14: The Hurricanes will take on the Seattle Kraken in a pair of games in Helsinki, Finland, that will be held in Veikkaus Arena, formerly known as Hartwell Arena. These will be the 12th and 13th NHL games in Finland, the home country of two key Hurricanes players: center Sebastian Aho (a native of Rauma) and center Jesperi Kotkaniemi (Pori).

December 18 and 20: The Chicago Blackhawks and Ottawa Senators will meet in Dusseldorf, just the second time the NHL will have played a regular season game in Germany and the first time in 15 years. The game is a key part of the league’s strategy in that country, which includes a deal with Bayern Munich FC (creating a platform for cross-sport collaboration, community engagement, youth outreach, and original content development) and four more games in that country in the 2027-28 season (two by the Boston Bruins in Munich and two for the Edmonton Oilers in Cologne).

Stars Are Out On Long Island

February 6, 2027: The New York Islanders had already waited four decades to host an All-Star Game, so what’s one more year? After initially awarding the 2026 All-Star Game to the Islanders — which would have been the team’s first since 1983 and the first in their new home, UBS Arena, which opened in the fall of 2021 — the NHL ultimately decided to cancel the game because of the Winter Olympics. Those Games, which ended with Team USA edging Team Canada in a classic overtime game packed full of NHL stars, were an unqualified success for the league, much as the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off that was also held in lieu of a traditional All-Star Game was.

The first NHL All-Star Game since 2024 will have a new format that mimics the success of that 4 Nations Face-Off. Teams made up of players from those countries — the United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden — plus a team of players from the rest of the world will play a round-robin of five-minute games with the top two teams facing off in a 10-minute final.