The NHL\u2019s new Collective Bargaining Agreement that goes into effect in September 2026 features a couple of slight alterations in the schedule.<\/p>\n
The regular season will increase from 82 games to 84 games and the season will start in September instead of early October.<\/p>\n
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed the earlier start to Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas at the NHL\/NHL Players\u2019 Association European Player Media Tour last week in Italy.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt (84-game schedule) should allow us to start the season earlier so we\u2019re not extending the overall schedule,\u201d Daly told Friedman and Bukauskas. \u201cThe 2026\u201327 season may be shorter (in days). We\u2019ll see how that plays out.\u201d<\/p>\n Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman said last month that an 84-game season \u201cmakes perfect sense.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019ll give more balance to divisional games,\u201d Yzerman said. \u201cI\u2019m not exactly sure what the matrix is going to be as far as divisional games and whatnot, but it seemed to make sense to us.\u201d<\/p>\n The two additional games will allow teams to play every division opponent four times (they currently play two clubs only three times each) in addition to facing teams in the other division of the same conference three times and teams in the other conference home and home.<\/p>\n The preseason, which the Red Wings always maximize by scheduling eight games, will be reduced to possibly as few as four games.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the four preseason games \u2026 it\u2019s a bit of a challenge,\u201d Yzerman said. \u201cYou\u2019re always weighing how many games your veteran players need to play. The guys that are really knocking on the door, the guys that you can consider call-ups and then those players that are here trying to push to make the team. It\u2019s going to be hard to get everybody in a reasonable number of games with four. That\u2019s the downside to it, but we\u2019ll manage it.\u201d<\/p>\n The NHL had 84-game schedules in 1992-93 and 1993-94, when every team played two neutral site games, before settling on an 82-game season.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL\u2019s new Collective Bargaining Agreement that goes into effect in September 2026 features a couple of slight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-117065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}