We now have a date to circle on our calendars.
On Monday, the NHL announced its 2025-26 season Opening Night tripleheader.
Featured prominently at the top are your defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers.
Florida will raise their second Stanley Cup banner on Tuesday, October 7 when they host the
Chicago Blackhawks at Amerant Bank Arena.
The game is set for an early 5 p.m. puck drop.
Also on the Opening Night docket are the New York Rangers hosting the Pittsburgh Penguins at 8 p.m. and the Colorado Avalanche visiting the Los Angeles Kings at 10:30 p.m.
One thing that immediately raises an eyebrow is regarding the league decision to give its back-to-back champions, and their fans, a non-traditional, arguably inconvenient start time on Opening Night.
We get it, the Penguins and Rangers are going to draw bigger audiences, but that’s going to happen regardless. It’s also a game that features two non-playoff teams from a season ago.
Speaking of teams that didn’t make the playoffs, Chicago actually finished one spot above worst in the NHL last season.
Again, we get it. It’s another big market, Original Six team, but putting them up against the defending Stanley Cup champions on opening night?
Where are the Lightning? Toronto? The Bruins?
It was Boston who Florida opened last season against, and who Florida has faced twice in the past three postseasons.
Maybe the league just thinks very highly of Seth Jones and Spencer Knight facing their former teams for the first time.
One thing that will be interesting to see play out on Opening Night will be how the Panthers fans react to Knight’s return to South Florida.
Long after the Trade Deadline deal that swapped Knight and Jones, Panthers fans continued to shout “Knight!” during the National Anthem.
To be fair, as games went deeper into the playoffs, there were a growing number of groaning, booing fans who didn’t seem to agree with the continuation of the “Knight!” chants.
But with Spencer returning for the first time, perhaps we’ll get one final, extremely loud “Knight!” to honor the young goaltender, who will likely be starting in net for the Blackhawks.
The rest of the 2025-26 NHL schedule is expected to come out on Wednesday afternoon.
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Photo caption: Oct 8, 2024; Sunrise, Florida, USA; Florida Panthers players watch from the ice as the team lifts the championship banner before the game against the Boston Bruins at Amerant Bank Arena. (Sam Navarro-Imagn Images)