After earning an Olympic quarterfinal berth and rostering a handful of the NHL’s biggest stars, hockey at the highest level will finally be back in Germany.
The NHL announced Friday that the Global Series return to Germany with two games between the Ottawa Senators and Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 18 and 20 at the PSD Bank Dome in Düsseldorf.
It marks the first NHL game in the country since 2024, when the Buffalo Sabres played a pre-season outing against EHC Red Bull München in Munich and the first regular-season showdown since 2011, when the Sabres took on the Los Angeles Kings in Berlin.
In all, it will mark the second- and third-ever NHL regular-season games played in Germany.
The league also announced that it intends to bring regular-season games to the country for at least the next three seasons as part of its Global Series initiative.
Headlining next season’s showdown will be Senators star Tim Stutzle, who leads the team in points with 70 (30 goals, 40 assists) in 64 games, and is a native of Viersen, a city 30 minutes away from Düsseldorf.
“I think German hockey has been growing a lot, and there are a lot of great players from there,” Stutzle said in a release put out by the NHL. “Now that (the NHL has) been committing to playing games there and supporting kids as well. It’s huge. Hopefully, it gets even more people to play hockey in Germany. It’s really exciting news.”