The Blackhawks open the 2026-27 season on the road Tuesday night against a Vegas team that looks every bit like a heavyweight right out of the gate.
Chicago gets the defending Western Conference champions in Game 1, and the matchup comes on the first day of the NHL’s 109th season of play and 110th year of operation. It also lands in a league calendar packed with the Heritage Classic, the Winter Classic, an international-themed All-Star Weekend, and Global Series games in Finland and Germany. On top of that, the NHL is back to an 84-game regular season for the first time since 1993-94.
Vegas arrives with plenty of firepower and a fresh voice behind the bench. After the Golden Knights switched from Bruce Cassidy to John Tortorella with eight games left in the regular season, they made a run to the Stanley Cup Final in the spring before losing to the Carolina Hurricanes in a great series.
That loss didn’t change the expectation in Vegas one bit. With their 10th anniversary season here, they’re still built to chase the top spot in the West.
They also made another coaching change, moving on from Tortorella and handing the job to Ryan Craig.
A projected Vegas lineup for opening night looks like this:
Barbashev-Eichel-Stone
Howden-Karlsson-Marner
Connelly-Hertl-Olofsson
McNabb-Theodore
Wotherspoon-Andersson
Lauzon-Hanifin
Hart
The top of that roster is as intimidating as it gets. Jack Eichel, Tomas Hertl, and William Karlsson give Vegas three centers who can drive a game, while Mark Stone, Mitch Marner, and Ivan Barbashev provide proven help on the wings. The Golden Knights did lose Pavel Dorofeyev to the New York Rangers, but the group still looks loaded.
On the back end, the big question is health. If Shea Theodore, Rasmus Andersson, and Noah Hanifin are all right and playing at their best, Vegas can roll out an elite defense. That’s the edge that makes this group so dangerous.
Chicago, though, is bringing a revamped look of its own.
The Blackhawks added Patrick Kane, Cole Smoth, Jordan Greenway, Roman Kantserov, Ian Cole, and Bowen Byram this offseason, and those moves show up in the projected opening-night lineup:
Moore-Kantserov-Kane
Donato-Nazar-Lardis
Bertuzzi-Frondell-Mangiapane
Smith-Greene-Greenway
Vlasic-Byram
Kaiser-Levshunov
Cole-Rinzel
Knight
One notable absence is Connor Bedard. The new captain is still coming back from a shoulder injury he suffered earlier in the summer, and while the original timeline had him returning in November, his recovery appears to be ahead of schedule. The Blackhawks said they will keep updating his status as more information becomes available.
Andrew Mangiapane also makes the projected lineup, which pushes Teuvo Teravainen out for now. That’s unfamiliar territory for the veteran, but he’ll need to earn his way back into the mix.
On defense, Kevin Korchinski and Ethan Del Mastro are the scratches. Both made the team out of camp, which came as a surprise to some, but they are still waiting for their first game-day look.
Chicago’s growth this season will also depend on the development of a young group that includes Anton Frondell, Frank Nazar, Ryan Greene, Oliver Moore, Artyom Levshunov, and Sam Rinzel. The expectation is that all of them will keep taking steps forward as the year unfolds.
Spencer Knight is slated to start in goal, with Arvid Soderblom backing him up.
And then there’s Patrick Kane, one of the new names on the sheet but hardly a stranger to Blackhawks fans. He remains one of the franchise’s most decorated legends, and this game will be his first with Chicago since the trade deadline of 2023.
The puck drops shortly after 9:30 PM CT. Fans can listen locally on AM 720 WGN in the Chicagoland area, and the game will air both locally and nationally on ESPN as part of the network’s opening-night triple-header.
In Other News...
Blackhawks Opening Night Picture Is Still Unsettled Without Bedard
The Blackhawks may have their opening-night roster on paper, but the group that actually skates into the season still looks like a work in progress. Chicago carried eight defensemen and 13 forwards as it finalized the roster for the 2026-27 NHL season, and head coach Jeff Blashill spent practice reshuffling the forward lines while the team prepared for its trip to Las Vegas.
The uncertainty is amplified by Connor Bedards status, since he traveled with the club but will not play during the three-game road trip and is also unlikely to be available for the home opener. Blashill said the final 12 forwards for the game are still not settled, leaving the Blackhawks with a little more sorting to do before they can put a true opening-night lineup on the ice. [Read more 🡒]
Blackhawks May Have Their Young Blue Line Answer After All
The Blackhawks spent the preseason sorting through a familiar question on the back end, and Kevin Korchinski gave them a good reason to believe the answer might already be in-house. After a solid camp and exhibition showing, the young defenseman appears positioned to earn a place in the opening night lineup, which would give Chicago another promising piece as it continues to build out its blue line around a core that already looks settled near the top.
Sam Rinzels preseason, meanwhile, pointed in the opposite direction. His struggles have left the organization leaning toward giving him more seasoning at the next level, while the top-four defensemen are expected to stay intact and Ian Cole is set to handle a steady veteran presence on the bottom pair. For a team trying to balance patience with progress, the final call on its young defense corps is starting to feel less like a mystery and more like a development plan taking shape. [Read more 🡒]
Blackhawks Enter A Season Kyle Davidson Can No Longer Delay
The Blackhawks are heading into the 2026-27 season at a point that was always going to come sooner or later for Kyle Davidson. After tearing the roster down, collecting high draft picks and adding franchise pieces such as Connor Bedard and Bowen Byram, the organization is no longer just measuring progress by patience and promise. This is the season when the rebuild starts to be judged in a more concrete way, even if a playoff push is not necessarily the expectation.
For Davidson, the pressure now shifts from assembling talent to defining the next version of the core. The front office has spent years stockpiling young players and reshaping the depth chart, and the question is no longer whether the Blackhawks have assets worth keeping around. It is which pieces fit the next phase, and how long the team can keep leaning on development before the discussion turns to results. [Read more 🡒]