Colorado Avalanche set to headline 2025-26 Opening Night schedule

The Colorado Avalanche will headline the 2025-26 Opening Night schedule as they take on the Los Angeles Kings at the Crypto.com Arena in California.

LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN‼️ pic.twitter.com/Oudfy9sj91

— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) July 14, 2025

The NHL released its Opening Night lineup with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers going toe-to-toe. The other game in the Opening Night tripleheader will be the Pittsburgh Penguins facing the New York Rangers.

For the Avalanche, the October 7 opening will mark the beginning of a new era for the club. The team will hopefully have captain Gabriel Landeskog in the Opening Night lineup for the first time in three seasons.

Moreover, the Avs will be looking to get off on the right foot this upcoming season. Last year, the Avalanche got off to a disastrous 0-4 start before rebounding. The club struggled in the first month of the season before finally finding its stride.

The Avs will also head into the season with a stable goaltending tandem and a solid defensive core led by reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar.

The Avalanche look poised to make a serious run this upcoming season, and it all gets started on Opening Night against the Los Angeles Kings.

Colorado Avalanche will play final 82-game regular season in 2025-26

This upcoming season will mark the final time the Colorado Avalanche will play an 82-game regular season.

Following the new Collective Bargaining Agreement’s (CBA) ratification earlier this month, the NHL will move to an 84-game schedule for the 2026-27 season.

The change from 82 to 84 games was largely due to the need to balance the schedule among Inter-division rivalries.

As it stands, teams play most division rivals four times. But teams face some division rivals only three times in the season. For example, the Avalanche faced all divisional opponents four times. However, the Avs only faced the Utah Mammoth and Dallas Stars three times.

The 84-game schedule intends to remedy that situation. It’s also worth pointing out that teams face inter-conference rivals twice, and non-division conference rivals three times. With the addition of the two extra games, the schedule should balance itself out completely.

The last time the NHL tried an 84-game schedule was back in the mid-90s. The aim was to add two extra games to each team’s schedule in what were called “neutral site” games back then. The goal was to promote the NHL in markets the league would eventually expand to. The experiment was dropped, and the league went back to an 82-game schedule until now.

It’s also worth noting that the NHL will cut the preseason schedule down in order to accommodate the two extra regular-season games without extending the overall season length.