The NHL’s full schedule is out, and for Blackhawks fans, the headline is hard to miss: the road trip comes first, and it comes in a hurry.
Chicago will open the season at Vegas on Sept. 29, then go to Utah two days later and Buffalo two days after that before finally getting home for its own opener against the Blues at the United Center on Tuesday, Oct. 6. That makes it nine straight seasons the Blackhawks have started on the road.
The league had already announced that the Senators and Blackhawks would be the centerpiece of the 2026 NHL Global Series Germany, with regular-season games set for Dec. 18 and Dec. 20 at PSD Bank Dome in Düsseldorf.
When the full schedule dropped Thursday, the Blackhawks’ social media team had its own reaction to the reveal. There were some shots in there, sure, but the bigger picture is less funny for Chicago fans.
The roughest part is what the calendar means for seeing Connor Bedard at home. The Blackhawks have seven straight home games from Oct. 10-27, their longest home stretch since 2022-23, but the season starts so early that fans will have very few chances to catch him at the United Center.
After the recent announcement that he could be sidelined until mid-November, he’ll likely miss nine home games to begin the year. If that timeline holds, the first chance to see him back in Chicago would be the four-game home stand that starts Nov.
The schedule does soften a bit around the holidays. Chicago will be at home for Thanksgiving weekend, with the Rangers coming in on Black Friday afternoon and the Wild following in a Sunday matinee.
The Blackhawks will also be home on both sides of the Christmas break, with a four-game home stand running from Dec. 20 through Jan. 1.
Another notable quirk: the Blackhawks have nine home matinee games on the schedule, plus five on the road.
They’ll finish the season with two home games, against the Predators on April 8 and the Kraken on April 10. Whether those dates matter for the standings is another question.
Chicago also has four preseason games lined up, with two against Minnesota and two against St. Louis.
The preseason schedule runs from Sept. 19-26.
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But the trade also invites a harder question: whether Chicago paid for certainty in a market that may have offered more paths to the same fix. Free-agent veterans such as John Klingberg, Jacob Trouba and John Carlson were out there as possible alternatives, and there were other avenues the Blackhawks could have explored if they wanted to avoid surrendering so much future capital. Buffalo, meanwhile, turned the pick it received from Chicago into defenseman Daxon Rudolph, a reminder that the cost of landing Byram was about more than just the contract. [Read more 🡒]