The 2026-27 NHL Calendar: 84 Games, Three Outdoor Dates and Two Trips to Europe

The 2026-27 NHL season runs from Tuesday 29 September 2026 to Saturday 10 April 2027, and it is the first 84-game season in more than thirty years. The league added two games per club under the new collective bargaining agreement so that every team plays an even number of games against its divisional opponents — and the extra fixtures pulled opening night forward into September for the first time.

Here is every date worth having, in order.

Opening night: 29 September 2026

Five games, including an ESPN tripleheader. The defending champion Carolina Hurricanes raise their banner at home against the Florida Panthers, who won back-to-back titles in 2024 and 2025 before Carolina took it in six games last June. The Rangers visit Boston, Montreal visits Toronto, Vancouver goes to Edmonton, and Chicago closes the night in Vegas.

The other change on opening night: the schedule now includes more daytime Monday games in North America, which is deliberate — an afternoon start on a US Monday lands in prime evening viewing hours in Europe. If you follow the league from outside North America, that is the single most useful thing on this page.

The full calendar

Three outdoor games, and one of them is on New Year's Eve

The Heritage Classic comes first, on 25 October, with Winnipeg hosting Montreal at Princess Auto Stadium — a football ground converted for the occasion. Then the Winter Classic lands on 31 December 2026, which is the interesting one: Utah hosting Colorado at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City on the last day of the year. Finally the Stadium Series on 20 February puts Dallas against Vegas at AT&T Stadium.

The New Year's Eve slot is worth planning around if you are in Europe, because a Salt Lake City afternoon game is an evening game in Europe — the rare case where an NHL outdoor fixture lands at a social hour rather than at three in the morning.

Four games in Europe

The Global Series splits into two trips. Carolina and Seattle play twice in Helsinki on 12 and 14 November; a bit over a month later, Ottawa and Chicago play twice in Düsseldorf on 18 and 20 December. It is the largest European footprint the league has scheduled in a single season.

Worth noting what is not on the calendar: there was no All-Star Game in either of the previous two seasons, because the 4 Nations Face-Off took the 2025 slot and the Milan Cortina Olympics took 2026. The All-Star Game returns this season at UBS Arena, with a new format.

What the international shirts are for

The Olympic tournament in Milan Cortina was the first Winter Games to feature NHL players since 2014, and it produced the result nobody in Canada wanted: the United States won gold for the first time in 46 years, beating Canada in the final. That is why the international shirts in stock are the ones they are.

• USA Hockey Olympic 2026 away replica, white — custom — $77.80. The gold medallists' away build, with your own name on the back.
• USA Hockey Olympic 2026 away replica, white — blank — $77.80. The same shirt without a name.
• Hockey Canada alternate replica, white — custom — $77.80.
• Hockey Canada alternate replica, red — custom — $77.80. The red one is the shirt people mean when they say Canada.

An international shirt solves a problem a club shirt does not: it is not tied to a season, a roster or a trade, and there is no risk of it dating. It is also the shirt that reads as support for a country rather than for a franchise, which is a different thing to wear to a game.

Sizing, briefly

Hockey shirts are the roomiest cut stocked and the sleeves run long — a men's small is a 40–43 inch chest with a 24-inch sleeve, against 17.5 inches on a baseball small. Order your true chest size and do not size up; the looseness is already built in. The size guide has the full chart.

The calendar also gives you a reason to buy before you need to. Three outdoor games and four European fixtures mean six dates on which a national or club shirt gets worn somewhere unusual, and the merchandise for those games is always produced in smaller runs than the standard home and away. If a Global Series or Winter Classic shirt is the one you want, the window is short.

Where to start

The All NHL Jerseys collection, the NHL collection and the NHL jersey collection are the three views of the range.

Free delivery over $78, $6.99 below, 30-day postage-paid returns. The tracking page covers parcels in transit, and the FAQ page covers the rest.

Frequently asked questions