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A major announcement and a decision by Bettman changes the NHL regular season forever moving forward
Photo credit: Sportsnet
National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman could soon be on the verge of an announcement that will change the League in a meaningful way moving forward.
For the 1st time in over 20 years, the NHL could be on the verge of making a notable change to its regular season scheduling.
The League is reportedly toying with the idea of increasing the number of games played from 82 to 84 in the new collective bargaining agreement; the current CBA expires in September 2026.
Looks like an 84-game sked is set to become a reality, NHL will sacrifice preseason games to make it work. Franchises complained about an imbalanced number of division games against rivals -- contests that typically draw larger crowds & bigger tv audiences according to ESPN.
NHL analyst Pierre LeBrun also confirmed that the League is considering the idea while also saying the pre-season schedule would be reduced from 8 games to 4 games:
I've reported on this before, but the idea in going to 84 regular season games starting in '26-27 would be in conjunction with reducing the pre-season as part it, perhaps going down to 4 pre-season games
The NHL last had 84 regular season games from 1992 through 1994, with 2 of those games being played at a neutral site.
So far, there isn't any additional information on how this might affect the start date of each season, which is typically mid-October.
Hockey fans, do you approve of the regular season being increased from 82 games to 84 games while reducing the pre-season to only 4 games?
Previously on Chicago Hockey Insider
| POLL | ||
JUIN 26 | 475 ANSWERS A major announcement and a decision by Bettman changes the NHL regular season forever moving forward Do you approve of the NHL potentially increasing to 84 regular season games? | ||
| Yes | 295 | 62.1 % |
| No | 180 | 37.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
