The NHL has begun its 110th season with a longer schedule of 84 games, the first time the regular season has been that long since 1993-94, and with the Carolina Hurricanes, the reigning champions, among the early leaders.
The 2026-27 NHL season began on 29 September 2026 and runs to June 2027, according to Wikipedia’s page on the season, which calls it the league’s 110th season. The regular season has been extended from 82 to 84 games for the first time since 1993-94 under the league’s new collective bargaining agreement, the page says.
The change adds two divisional games to each team’s schedule and cuts the preseason from six games to four. The page also notes that teams will now hire their own emergency backup goaltenders, rather than relying on amateur goalies supplied by the home club. The sources reviewed do not explain the commercial reasoning behind the longer schedule.
The early standings show a mixed picture. Wikipedia lists the Vegas Golden Knights at 6-2-0, the Edmonton Oilers at 5-0-1 and the Carolina Hurricanes at 6-1-1 in early results. A separate search summary of mid-October standings has Carolina leading the East with 11 points, ahead of the Ottawa Senators on 10 and the Tampa Bay Lightning on 8, and Vegas leading the West with 12 points from eight games, ahead of Edmonton on 11 from six and Utah on 10 from seven. The two sources are from different dates and do not agree on Carolina’s total, so only the records from Wikipedia should be treated as firm.
Carolina are the defending champions. The search summary says that the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup in 2025-26, Delima News could not confirm the series result or the final score from the sources reviewed.
Two individual milestones were reported on the season page. Sidney Crosby began his 20th season as Pittsburgh’s captain, which the page says makes him the longest-tenured captain in NHL history, and the New York Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin became the 18th goaltender in the league’s history to score a goal.
The season includes three outdoor games. The Heritage Classic is on 25 October, between the Winnipeg Jets and the Montreal Canadiens. The Winter Classic is on 31 December, between the Utah Mammoth and the Colorado Avalanche, and the Stadium Series is on 20 February, between the Dallas Stars and the Vegas Golden Knights. The All-Star Game returns on 7 February at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York, for the first time since 2024, according to the page.
Early-season tables are volatile, as the different numbers for the same clubs show. Teams have played between six and eight games of an 84-game schedule, so a few wins or losses can change a club’s position, and the standings published this week will look different by the time the Heritage Classic is played.
Teams that wish to reach the playoffs will be judged on a longer sample than the early tables suggest. The two extra games also change the arithmetic for the playoff race, since each team now has 168 points available instead of 164, a figure that is Delima News’ own calculation from two points per game.
Image: Carolina Hurricanes banners (file photo; a stand-in image). Photo: Zanfromcary Aaron Caldwell, Cary, North Carolina, USA / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)
