The NHL's 2026-27 schedule is out. Opening night has some of the best of it, but the four games that follow are the ones worth circling. Roughly one a week through October, where the drama of June and July finally shows up on the ice.
Buffalo at Montreal: Game 8
Oct 13 · 6:30 PM ET · Centre Bell
Buffalo won the Atlantic with a record of 50-23-9, 109 points and a +47 goal differential. This season sparked new life for Sabres fans as they broke a 14 year playoff drought.
Montreal finished third in the division with a record of 48-24-10, 106 points and a +27 goal differential. They were led by Nick Suzuki, coming off a 101-point season and winning the Selke.
In the first round Buffalo handled business in six games vs the Boston Bruins, and Montreal went the distance vs Tampa Bay. The stage was set for two young, skilled, ready-to-prove teams.
Buffalo took Game 1 at home and then lost two of three in their own building. Montreal was no better at the Bell Centre. Buffalo went in and took Game 4 by a goal, then buried them 8-3 in Game 6 to force a seventh. Through six games each team had won once at home and twice on the road.
Game 7 went to overtime in Buffalo. Montreal led 2-0, Buffalo clawed all the way back, and Rasmus Dahlin tied it in the third. Then 11:22 into overtime, Alex Newhook ended their season.
Montreal went on to the Eastern Conference Final and ran into Carolina, who beat them 4-1 and then won the Cup. Buffalo went home in May having been the better team for six months and the second-best team for two weeks.
Two weeks into the new season, they have to do it again. October 13, Centre Bell, 6:30 ET.
NHL players have long memories. They shook hands in May. They start again in October.
San Jose at Toronto: #1 v #2
Oct 19 · 7:30 PM ET · Scotiabank Arena
Toronto took Gavin McKenna first overall. San Jose took Ivar Stenberg second. Three weeks into the season, they're in the same building.
McKenna came out of Penn State with 51 points in 35 games as an 18-year-old, 1.46 a night against players four years older. Stenberg spent his draft year in the SHL, 33 points in 43 games for Frölunda, which is a different kind of hard: men's professional hockey, and he was a teenager in it.
Both signed three-year entry-level deals this month. In their first season, they're each looking to make a name for themselves and show the hockey world what they can do.
McKenna is an elite setup man with goal-scoring potential. 36 of his 51 points at Penn State were assists, and he walks into a room with Auston Matthews and William Nylander already in it. Stenberg has great vision too but plays a more complete two-way game, and he's got his own elite company in San Jose: Macklin Celebrini, coming off a 115-point season, and Will Smith.
Toronto has seen this story before. In 2016 they took Auston Matthews first overall and Patrik Laine went second to Winnipeg. Matthews put up 40 goals and 69 points as a rookie, Laine 36 and 64, and the league spent a year watching them chase each other. It was a great story to follow, and I hope these two can write the same storylines in their first year.
Florida at Ottawa: The Captain Returns
Oct 21 · 7:30 PM ET · Canadian Tire Centre
Brady Tkachuk goes home in the wrong sweater.
Ottawa drafted him 4th overall in 2018, made him captain at 21, and he never played anywhere else. Eight seasons, one team: 572 games, 213 goals, 250 assists, 463 points, and 821 penalty minutes. The points made him great. The penalty minutes created a love-hate relationship.
Last season Brady was quietly good: 60 games, 22 goals, 37 assists, 59 points, 0.98 a night. Then Carolina swept them in four, and he finished with zero points and 13 penalty minutes. It was the second playoff appearance of his career, and the last thing he ever did in a Senators sweater.
He was a lifelong Sen, and Ottawa loved him for it. Until they didn't. The wanted-out rumours ran for two years, and the city spent a lot of time wondering if he would be coming back.
In June, the rumours turned out to be true. He waived his no-movement clause, which Ottawa needed before they could move him at all, and went to Florida on $8.21M through 2028, onto a team with his brother.
Brady always seemed to have real respect for his teammates, so I don't expect fireworks. If anything did start, Florida has the rat pack.
Brady Tkachuk is in the visitors' end of the building where he was captain. Canadian Tire Centre has four months to decide how it wants to greet him.
Anaheim at Philadelphia: Battle of the Orange
Oct 24 · 1:00 PM ET · Xfinity Mobile Arena
The most expensive handshake of the summer, on a Saturday afternoon.
Philadelphia offer-sheeted Leo Carlsson. Anaheim matched, at five years and $18M a season. That makes Carlsson the highest-paid player in the NHL, ahead of Kaprizov at $17M, Draisaitl at $14M, Eichel at $13.5M, Matthews at $13.25M, and McDavid at $12.5M.
So a 21-year-old who scored 67 points last season now makes $5.5M more than Connor McDavid, who put up 138 points last year.
Philadelphia never got their player, but they sent a dagger straight into Anaheim's rebuild. The Ducks still have a 41-goal RFA unsigned in Cutter Gauthier, who put up 69 points last season. Beckett Sennecke scored 60 on an entry-level deal. Anaheim has to pay both, and they just spent $18M a year on one player.
This offer sheet is about the player, but it's also about two franchises that don't seem to like each other much. Philadelphia drafted Gauthier 5th overall in 2022. He never played a game for them and forced his way to Anaheim. Now Philadelphia's offer sheet is the reason Anaheim might not be able to keep him.
Leo Carlsson walks into Philadelphia on a Saturday afternoon: the highest-paid player in hockey, in the building of the team that made him that, in front of one of the fiercest fanbases in North America. Philadelphia doesn't forgive much. They're not going to start with him.
