Guide to the 2025-26 NHL season and Milan Olympics: How to watch and more
The puck drops on the NHL season Oct. 7 with a tripleheader that includes the Florida Panthers raising a Stanley Cup banner for a second consecutive year and Mike Sullivan making his New York Rangers coaching debut against the Pittsburgh Penguins team he spent much of the past decade with.
This is the final 82-game season before the schedule expands to 84 apiece for each of the league’s 32 teams beginning in 2026-27. It’s also expected to be the final October start before training camp and exhibition play shrink and opening night gets moved up to late September.
The league will take a two-week break in February so players can compete at the Olympics in Milan.
What to know
The Panthers are looking to become the first NHL team to threepeat since the New York Islanders won four championships in a row from 1980-83. They likely won’t have captain and top center Aleksander Barkov all season after surgery to repair torn ligaments in his right knee from a noncontact injury during training camp.
NHL players are back in the Olympics for the first time since 2014 when Canada won its second consecutive gold medal. It’s the first full-fledged international tournament featuring the world’s best since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. The 4 Nations Face-Off with the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland provided a taste of the kind of quality and pace that can be expected.
Connor McDavid, widely considered the game’s best player, is still chasing the Stanley Cup in his 11th season in the league. He is in the final year of his contract with the Edmonton Oilers, and his future is the talk of the sport.
Stanley Cup favorites
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 rebuilding Chicago and San Jose at 500-1.
How to watch
ESPN and TNT air games nationally in the U.S., with Sportsnet as the rightsholder in Canada.
There are 100 exclusive games between ESPN, ABC, ESPN+ and Hulu, including all three 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 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.
What the season looks like
More than 900 games will take place 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 men’s hockey tournament in Milan begins Feb. 11 with Finland vs. Slovakia and Sweden against host Italy. The gold-medal game is set for Feb. 22.
NHL play resumes on Feb. 25. The trade deadline is March 6 and the final day of the regular season is April 16. The playoffs begin April 18 and the last possible day for the Stanley Cup Final is June 21. Free agency begins July 1.
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