Chicago Blackhawks will open the NHL season on the road vs. the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers
The game will kick off ESPN's slate at 4 p.m., with the New York Rangers hosting the Pittsburgh Penguins at 7 and the Los Angeles Kings hosting the Colorado Avalanche at 9:30.
The full NHL schedule will be announced at noon Wednesday on NHL Network.
The Hawks might be starting to feel like the visitors at a big homecoming game. It will be the fourth time in the last six seasons they've been the side note in the host team's celebratory opener — either a championship banner raising or an expansion team's first game.
Another recent opener pitted Hawks rookie Connor Bedard, in his NHL debut, against his idol, Sidney Crosby, and the Pittsburgh Penguins as part of another tripleheader. The Hawks' 4-2 upset on Oct. 10, 2023, in front of 18,411 at PPG Paints Arena drew 1.43 million viewers, a regular-season record for ESPN (excluding Winter Classics).
The Hawks will open on the road for an eighth consecutive season, dating to Oct. 4, 2019, in Prague against the Philadelphia Flyers as part of the NHL Global Series. The Hawks lost that game 4-3 in front of 17,463 at O2 Arena.
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