{"id":91115,"date":"2025-08-23T23:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/91115\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T23:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:55:07","slug":"nhl-could-start-regular-season-in-september-with-new-84-game-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/91115\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Could Start Regular Season In September With New 84-Game Schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Early hockey is always good<\/p>\n<p>PublishedAugust 23, 2025 6:48 PM EDT\u2022UpdatedAugust 23, 2025 6:48 PM EDT<\/p>\n<p>FacebookTwitterEmailCopy Link<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">We&#8217;re in the middle of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outkick.com\/category\/national-hockey-league\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">NHL<\/a> offseason, which is always tough for hockey fans, but there&#8217;s some potential good news on the horizon.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">According to the league&#8217;s Deputy Commissioner, Bill Daly, this may be the last time we have to wait until October to see regular-season hockey.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">The NHL season has gotten underway in October for years, but the new CBA between the NHL and the NHLPA contains provisions for an 84-game regular season as opposed to the 82-game season we&#8217;ve all become accustomed to.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outkick.com\/sweepstakes?cmpid=org=ok::ag=owned::mc=editorial::src=ok_content::cmp=sec_sweeps::add=SEC_Sweeps_Promotion\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pack your bags, football fans! OutKick is sending one lucky winner and a friend to Athens for Georgia vs. Alabama. Travel\u2019s on us, VIP tickets in hand, and bragging rights for life. Enter Now!<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">However, this wouldn&#8217;t necessarily mean tacking two extra games onto the end of the season. Instead, the league plans to shorten the preseason.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Daly told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/nhl\/article\/nhl-deputy-commissioner-bill-daly-touches-on-2026-season-start-date-future-world-cup\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sportsnet&#8217;s<\/a> Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas during the NHL\/NHL Players&#8217; Association European Player Media Tour in Italy that the 2026-27 season could start in September.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">&#8220;It should allow us to start the season earlier so we\u2019re not extending the overall schedule,&#8221; Daly said. &#8220;The 2026\u201327 season may be shorter. We\u2019ll see how that plays out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">I dig it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"668\" height=\"376\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/gettyimages-2205463364.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Hockey fans could get regular season games a bit earlier next season with word that the NHL could start the 2026-27 season in September. (Photo by Jonathan Kozub\/NHLI via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">It sounds like the plan is for the season to wrap up around the time it normally does; mid-April-ish. Then, the Stanley Cup Playoffs would run through late spring and end sometime in June.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Now, if the first regular-season games are going to be in September, we have a shorter time to wait from the time the Stanley Cup is hoisted until the puck drops for the next season.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">I love this. Earlier hockey is always good. I don&#8217;t think we need the six or seven preseason games ever. I get how they&#8217;re useful for conditioning and evaluating players, but that can&#8217;t be done in four games?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">Plus, it&#8217;s not like you&#8217;re setting your roster for all 84 games after those preseason games. The players who were on the bubble will likely end up bouncing between the NHL and AHL anyway.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:left;\">This feels like a win for fans, and we\u2019ll see how it plays out when the puck drops in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early hockey is always good PublishedAugust 23, 2025 6:48 PM EDT\u2022UpdatedAugust 23, 2025 6:48 PM EDT FacebookTwitterEmailCopy Link&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-91115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}