A new report discusses changes to the NHL schedule. There was already an agreement to move the schedule from 82 to 84 games, meaning that fans will have one more home game to go to (and for season ticket holders to pay for) each season. That starts in the 2026-27 season.
With the new games, something must be worked out. Will the NHL add those two games to the beginning of the season, pushing players to have a shorter offseason, or will they put them at the end of the season, pushing the Stanley Cup Final even later in June?
As of right now, it seems like the former is on the docket. A new report from Sportsnet talks about starting the season in September. It's all a part of the new collective bargaining agreement.
This would allow the season to end at the same time, or even a little earlier, while still adding those two extra games. It also starts the season in the same month that the NFL starts. It puts them in more direct competition with the most popular sport in the U.S. while they are skipping the option to spend more time head-to-head with… baseball.
September hockey seems insane. However, if more offseasons feel like this one, we will just want to get things started. Nothing has happened for a full month, and the Luke Hughes drama is drawing out seemingly unnecessarily. There are pros and cons to this arrangement.
As of now, we’d accept a September start. It already feels like a sprint at the end of June with the end of the Final, the NHL Draft, and NHL Free Agency. Moving the Final to end later could allow the Stanley Cup to be awarded, with the NHL Draft taking place the next day. That doesn’t seem fair to the winners.
The con is shortening the window for rest and recovery. Players would have harder decisions to make about offseason surgeries, and there's a chance they could get hurt more with a longer schedule, although that data isn't clear as of now.
Honestly, being September 1st, we'd love to have preseason games starting next week. The regular season still feels far away. Heck, let's see what a September start looks like and go from there. The offseason is long enough, especially if we have more offseasons like this one.