The NHL’s 2026-27 calendar brings a major shift, and the Chicago Blackhawks are right in the middle of it. For the first time since the 1993-94 season, the league is going to an 84-game schedule. That means fewer preseason games and a regular season that gets rolling more than a week earlier than it has in recent years.
For the Blackhawks, the opening stretch is already set. They’ll begin with a three-game trip that takes them to the Vegas Golden Knights, Utah Mammoth and Buffalo Sabres before returning home for a date with the St.
Louis Blues on Oct. 6.
From there, the schedule starts to stack up quickly. Chicago’s home slate includes early-season visits from Carolina, Pittsburgh, Winnipeg, Dallas, Montreal, Florida and Los Angeles, along with a busy run through late October and November. The Blackhawks also get a home game against Colorado on Nov. 2 before heading back on the road for Florida, Tampa Bay and Carolina.
The calendar turns into a long grind in November and December, with trips to Calgary, Vancouver, Seattle, Nashville, St. Louis, Pittsburgh and Winnipeg mixed in with home games against Buffalo, Toronto, Columbus, Edmonton, Utah and the Rangers.
Chicago will also play two games in Germany against the Ottawa Senators, on Dec. 18 and Dec. 20.
The schedule keeps moving fast after the holiday break. The Blackhawks open the new year at home against Boston on Jan. 1, then head out for a road-heavy stretch that includes Dallas, Montreal, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Toronto. January also brings home games against Utah, Detroit, Calgary, Dallas, Vancouver and Vegas.
February and March are packed with familiar Western Conference matchups. Chicago will see San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles on the road before coming back for games against St.
Louis, Minnesota, New Jersey, the Islanders, the Kings, Colorado, Edmonton, Tampa Bay and Washington. The final month of the season is heavy with travel again, including trips to Colorado, Anaheim, Utah, Minnesota, Columbus and Washington, while the home schedule closes with Nashville, Seattle and another matchup with Nashville before the season ends against the Kraken on April 10.
One detail stands out immediately in the breakdown: there are no more 7:30 p.m. starts for home games. After a strong response from the recent fan survey, those home starts have been moved up to 7 p.m.
In Other News...
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For the Blackhawks, the more immediate focus is their own schedule and the challenge that comes with it. Chicago has learned its first four home and road opponents, and the season will open with three straight road games against playoff teams, all without Connor Bedard, a difficult early test for a team trying to build momentum while the rest of the conference keeps shifting. [Read more 🡒]
Blackhawks Fans Still Have One Big Connor Murphy Debate
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The debate for Blackhawks fans is whether that kind of dependable presence was worth moving on from when the front office had a chance to cash in. Chicago did land a 2028 second-round pick in the deal, which gives the trade some long-term appeal, but Murphys value was always tied to the kind of minutes and matchup work that are hard to replace cleanly. For a team still sorting out its defensive identity, the question lingers over whether the return matched the role he filled. [Read more 🡒]
Blackhawks May Have Passed On A Better Way To Fix Defense
The Blackhawks made their biggest defensive swing of the summer in June, sending a premium 2026 first-rounder, a second-round pick and Louis Crevier to Buffalo for Bowen Byram and Jordan Greenway, then quickly locking Byram into a $75 million contract that made him the leagues highest-paid defenseman. On paper, it was the kind of bold move a team trying to accelerate its rebuild can sell to itself, especially with a young blue line still looking for a true anchor.
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 🡒]