The NHL announced today that the 2026-27 season will kick off on Tuesday September 29th, with five games and ten teams scheduled to hit the ice for the first time. The Rangers will be one of those teams, travelling up I-95 to Boston to face off against the Bruins. Elsewhere the Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes will host the 2025 Champion Florida Panthers in a game that will feature the Tkachuk brothers playing together for the first time at the NHL.
Up in Canada Toronto will host their neighbors the Montreal Canadiens, while Vancouver will travel to Alberta to face the Edmonton Oilers. In the final game of opening night, the 2026 Western Conference champion Vegas Golden Knights will welcome Connor Bedard – presumably – and the Chicago Blackhawks.
HOPING FOR A BETTER START ON HOME ICE
The Rangers’ home opener is set for Thursday October 1st, when the Tampa Bay Lightning will travel town for their season opener. Both teams have made some changes with the Rangers adding at least five projected starters, including Oliver Bjorkstrand who dressed for the Lightning last season.
New York will be looking to get off to a far better start at MSG than they did in 2025-26, in Mike Sullivan’s first year as head coach. The Blueshirts struggled to score, taking 180:57 to record their first home goal of the season when Artemi Panarin finally broke the hex against the visiting Minnesota Wild. The home fans would have to wait until the second month of the season for a win though, when they finally found some offense in defeating the Nashville Predators 6-3. In all, New York went 0-6-1 to begin with on home ice, being shutout an eye-watering five times during that stretch.
The poor start set the tone for the season, and ultimately helped contribute to an Eastern Conference worst 34-39-9 record that was also third worst in the entire league.
CBJ