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Defending Stanley Cup champion Florida is among the six teams in action as the 2025-26 NHL season gets underway.
Follow live as The Athletic’s NHL writers cover all the action from Blackhawks-Panthers, Penguins–Rangers and Avalanche–Kings tonight.
Schedule (Times ET):
TV: ESPN
Streaming: Fubo (Stream Free Now)
Get in touch: live@theathletic.com
It might be a little while before Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson has to really wade into such waters — Connor Bedard’s pending extension notwithstanding — but like everyone else in the hockey world, he kept a close eye on the recent negotiations for both Minnesota star Kirill Kaprizov and Edmonton megastar Connor McDavid.
Kaprizov turned down the biggest contract offer ever and settled for an even bigger one, for eight years at $17 million per season. McDavid, on the other hand, left a ton of years and money on the table, giving himself control of his future and his team a chance to build around him with a two-year deal at a meager $12.5 million a season.
Are there conclusions to be drawn from either as we enter this fast-rising-cap world? Or are they outliers from two unique situations?
“We want to draw conclusions to everything and build a pattern and how that’s going to predict future behavior, but I don’t think anyone knows,” Davidson said with a chuckle. “I look at it just as much as everyone else, and I have no clue. I don’t know where it’s headed, what it means for anyone down the road, or what guys could get in free agency next year. You try and figure it out, but everything seems like a one-off.”
It’s getting wacky out there, with Anaheim’s Jackson LaCombe making the same amount as Cale Makar, and Mikko Rantanen signing for $5 million less than Kaprizov less than half a year earlier. A lot of long-term contracts that were signed in the flat-cap era will start to look like bargains as other players — particularly younger ones — hit the market at just the right time. And it could be a while before the salary hierarchy realigns with the talent hierarchy.
“I certainly think it could take a couple years for that water to find its level and everyone to figure out what they’re dealing with,” Davidson said. “Maybe not. But it feels like with the new cap system, players, player reps, teams are just trying to find what that new normal is. And I don’t think anyone quite knows as of right now.”
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Welcome to 2025-26 Goalie Tiers, in which we anonymously poll some of the brightest minds in goaltending in an attempt to rank NHL goalies by true talent.
Stats such as save percentage and goals against average can be misleading because they are heavily influenced by the defensive play in front of the netminder. An 11-person panel of voters was tasked with grading each goalie’s true ability, regardless of situation. The panel is comprised of eight goalie coaches (current and former NHL coaches, and private coaches who work with NHLers) and three retired NHL goalies. We grant anonymity to encourage honesty and participation.
These experts view the position through uniquely trained eyes. They were asked to rate each goalie on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being best and five being worst, based on how they expect them to play this season — and not necessarily their long-term projection. They considered how well each netminder reads plays, tracks pucks, stays on angle, controls rebounds, inspires the team in front of them and everything else that comes with the position. The ratings were then averaged, and the goalies were sorted into tiers.
Check out the full tier list below.
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2025-26 NHL Goalie Tiers: Anonymous panel of coaches and goalies rates every starter
In a fairly interesting development, new Penguins coach Dan Muse has opted to go with Arturs Silovs over Tristan Jarry as his starting goaltender tonight at Madison Square Garden. It's probably safe to say that, moving forward, Muse will go with the goaltender who is playing best. It was still generally assumed, however, that Jarry would get the start this evening.
Jarry was bombarded by the Rangers in the season opener last October, giving up the first goal on the first shot and never recovering in a 6-0 setback.
A year later, he will sit on the bench while Silovs, formerly of the Vancouver Canucks, will start his first game as a member of the Penguins.
What does it mean? My take is, Muse isn't concerning himself with whoever the No. 1 guy was in the past. If you've earned a job, you'll get it.
I also thing goal prevention is a real issue for the Penguins and there's a chance both goaltenders could struggle.
For a night, though, the net belongs to Silovs.
Our NHL experts here at The Athletic have put together a preview for every single NHL team's 2025-26 season, including projected points, strengths, weaknesses, X-factors and more.
You can find the full list of previews below, with teams listed from lowest projected points to most projected points.
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NHL season previews 2025-26: Projecting each team from worst to first
The New York Rangers made their final roster decisions for the start of the 2025-26 NHL season Monday, signing veteran Conor Sheary to a one-year, two-way deal for the league minimum of $775,000 and assigning 23-year-old winger Brett Berard to AHL Hartford. With that, 22-year-old center Noah Laba has gone from the biggest surprise at training camp to officially being on the team.
The moves trimmed the roster to 23, which is how the Rangers will enter Tuesday’s 8 p.m. ET opener at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and leaves them with just under $825,000 in available salary-cap space to begin the season. Team president Chris Drury typically carries 22 players in an effort to accrue additional cap space leading up to the trade deadline, so it will be interesting to see how long they stick with the full 23.
New coach Mike Sullivan, who was hired by New York in May after spending 10 seasons and winning two Stanley Cup championships behind the Penguins bench, has been adamant about the fluidity of the roster, a signal to Berard and other prospects that their opportunities should come during the season. But now that we know how they’re starting, let’s discuss the state of the Rangers by offering one thought for every player who made the initial cut, in alphabetical order.
Read more on the Rangers below.
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The Rangers’ opening-night roster is set: 1 thought for every player who made it
By Shayna Goldman, Sean Gentille and Dom Luszczyszyn
When the Avalanche won it all in 2022, it felt like they were on the cusp of a generational run. Colorado was one of the league’s best-run operations, powered by an unbelievably strong core few teams could even hope to match.
The Avalanche seemed inevitable as the league’s top team for years to come. The team to fear every year — the next Blackhawks, Penguins or Lightning.
Life hasn’t quite worked out as expected, but after a tumultuous season with lots of moving parts, the Avalanche look hungry to get things back on track. For the first time in three years, the Avalanche start the season in the league’s top five.
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Colorado Avalanche 2025-26 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings
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By Sean Gentille, Shayna Goldman and Dom Luszczyszyn
It’s difficult to find a team in a more demoralizing place right now than the Los Angeles Kings.
Four straight first-round playoff exits at the hands of the same team is nightmare fuel. And it doesn’t feel like there’s an end in sight, considering how much daylight there is between Los Angeles and the top two teams in the Pacific Division. The (spoiler alert) nine-point gap between second and third is the largest of any division. It’s just not close.
With how little the Kings have to show from an accelerated rebuild, the state of the aging veterans they accelerated the rebuild for, and the current direction after a disastrous summer … demoralizing might even be underselling it.
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Los Angeles Kings 2025-26 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings
This was never going to be a particularly pleasant season for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Their rebuild is still in its early stages and (for now) hasn’t landed any high-end young pieces, Evgeni Malkin is almost certainly about to play his last 82-ish games with the franchise and the list of reasons for real on-ice optimism is one item long, unless you feel like writing “Sidney Crosby” a few different ways.
On Sept. 9, the storm clouds got a bit darker, with Crosby and agent Pat Brisson either signaling their openness to seeking a trade out of Pittsburgh or pressuring GM Kyle Dubas to quicken the pace of his rebuild. It’s one or the other, as Josh Yohe wrote, and it’s a big deal.
The Penguins are almost certainly going to be bad and dramatic in equal parts — but will they be bad enough?
Read Pittsburgh's season preview below.
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Pittsburgh Penguins 2025-26 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings
In June 2024, after another disappointing loss in the Stanley Cup playoffs, Chris Drury sounded like a man ready for wholesale, meaningful change.
“To me, nothing’s off the table,” the New York Rangers president and general manager said. “We’re trying to reach the ultimate goal here.”
It took another season — and an ugly one, at that — but Drury made good on his word. The Rangers, in the last year, have added a new No. 1 center, made three roster-reshaping trades and, at long last, hired Mike Sullivan as head coach. Time to see if it was all enough to make a difference.
Read the Rangers season preview below.
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New York Rangers 2025-26 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings
Our preview for the Chicago Blackhawks in 2024-25 focused on boxes that they’d checked. Connor Bedard, as a rookie, was basically as good as advertised. Chicago’s prospect pool was the best in the sport. The NHL veterans they’d signed seemed capable enough of helping things along.
Now? We know Bedard, for all his talents, failed to make the Year 2 leap we’ve seen from generational talents. We know that the prospect situation is still quite rosy. And we know that most of those veteran acquisitions were … well, not very helpful. It’s time to get things moving in Chicago.
Read the Blackhawks season preview below.
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Chicago Blackhawks 2025-26 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings
The Florida Panthers, against their will, are attempting their three-peat on Hard Mode.
Aleksander Barkov, one of the league’s premier two-way forces and the Panthers’ best player, is expected to miss seven to nine months after surgery to repair the ACL and MCL in his right knee, the team announced on Friday. That’d give him a return date sometime between April and June. For Florida, that’s tough math. For Barkov, it’s even tougher; he would’ve captained Finland at the Winter Olympics in February.
It changes the calculus for the rest of the league, too. The best hockey team on the planet is, for now, leaking oil.
Read the Panthers season preview below.
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Florida Panthers 2025-26 season preview: Playoff chances, projected points, roster rankings
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EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. – Some knew his name. Some just knew his lore.
As Eden Prairie High School football fans watched their team face visiting Edina High School on a recent Friday night, the opposing quarterback was a hot topic.
One conversation among adults in the bleachers centered around the quarterback’s size – listed at 6 feet, 7 inches and 225 pounds in the game program – and which Division I football programs were interested in him. In a group of kids hanging around the fence at field level, one knew Edina’s quarterback had already been drafted into the NHL as a forward, which was more than enough to draw the others’ interest.
Seth Jones was a well-liked teammate in Chicago. He was the Blackhawks’ best and most established player for significant stretches over four seasons. He showed up, he worked hard, he played hard. Even his contract, which seemed so onerous when he first signed it, never really hamstrung general manager Kyle Davidson, who wasn’t spending to the salary cap, anyway.
But Jones also wanted out. Didn’t want to remain a part of a (very) long-term rebuild, didn’t want to suffer the losing anymore. He made his desire to be traded public — giving honest answers to difficult questions — and that clearly didn’t sit well with his teammates, particularly captain Nick Foligno, who took several not-so-veiled swipes at his former teammate (in Columbus and Chicago) after Jones was dealt to the Florida Panthers ahead of the trade deadline.
We’ve gotten rid of some distractions.
Sometimes, when you make hard decisions, they end up benefiting the group.
Everyone here is pulling on the same rope (now).
And yes, Jones heard them.
Read more on Jones' departure from Chicago below.
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Panthers’ Seth Jones ‘taken aback’ by Blackhawks’ Nick Foligno’s post-trade swipes, but no ill will
Yeah, life is pretty good in South Florida, where it’s all palm trees and trophies. The sun shines brightly, but the spotlight doesn’t. The vibes are high and the taxes are low. So hey, why not hang out at the rink a little longer?
Of course, Brad Marchand is 37 years old. This is his 17th NHL season. He doesn’t need to be out there for more than an hour. He doesn’t have to prove to coach Paul Maurice that he’s worthy of a roster spot. The guy could have been showered, dressed and halfway home by now.
But dang it, it’s just really fun to be a Florida Panther.
“It’s rejuvenating,” Marchand told The Athletic. “The love of the game, coming into a new group and a new environment. Sometimes that’s all it takes to get your mind back into the right place. And it makes you want to hold up your end of the bargain. That’s a huge part of this group. You don’t want to let the guy beside you down. You see how hard everyone is working, so you’d better pull on that part of the rope as well.”
It’s why Marchand — who felt “written off” by most of the hockey world last season — signed a six-year contract to stay in Florida, a deal that would take him into his mid-40s. Like so many before him in the last few years, he’s found hockey paradise and he doesn’t want to leave. One look at Panthers general manager Bill Zito’s cap sheet is enough to send a cold shiver down the spines of 31 other fan bases. The following players are all signed through the end of the decade, and most of them for well under market value: Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell, Marchand, Aaron Ekblad, Gustav Forsling, Seth Jones and Niko Mikkola.
Read more on the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions below.
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As two-time champion Florida Panthers enter uncharted territory, fatigue is no match for fun
The Blackhawks displayed some good things, some bad, some in between on Friday in what was essentially their last game of the preseason.
But overall, there were enough positive things in a 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild to give Chicago a feeling that it’s ready for tonight's season opener against the Florida Panthers.
“Because of the way we’re coached, I think it’s coming really fast,” Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno said after the game. “The attention to detail of the information that we’re getting, it’s direct, it’s purposeful and it allows us to attain it as fast as possible. I saw that even in our games, just how much better we got throughout the periods. Even our third periods seem to be our best periods a lot of nights. Guys know what they need to do and have adapted well to that.
“We’re obviously going to continue to work on things as teams make adjustments against us, but I’m really encouraged by our group. I’m honestly excited by what’s to come here at the start of the season. We just have to learn that we have to be the team that was like that in the first period, not the team that beats itself. Those are old habits we’ve got to get out of our game and understand we’re a different team.”
Read more on the Blackhawks below ahead of tonight's season opener.
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Blackhawks takeaways: Final roster decisions loom after last NHL-lineup preseason game
Chicago Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno doesn’t pretend he has another 10 years left in him. He’ll be 38 later this month. But he also isn’t ready to say this is his final season, even if he is entering the last year of his contract.
There will be time, maybe even later this season or after it, to decide his future. Right now, it’s all about the present.
“Not really,” Foligno said Thursday when asked if he’s thought about whether this would be his final NHL season. “I mean, I have, but I haven’t really in-depth thought about it, to be honest with you. I’m just kind of year by year. I actually bring this up — I talked to Patrice Bergeron a few years back about it. He’s like, you know what’s nice? It’s just we have the opportunity to go year by year and just see where we’re at, and we’ve kind of afforded ourselves that luxury.
“So I’m really enjoying the moment, and that’s it, honestly. I don’t want to be thinking so far ahead that I’m not in this moment. But I’m really enjoying what I’m doing right now. That possibility opens itself up, I want to be present for that too, and actually understand where I’m at, as opposed to just being like, feeling the need to play or feeling the burden to play. So I kind of want to balance both of those. So, that’s kind of where I am at. I haven’t had to talk to anybody about it really.”
Read more on the Blackhawks captain below.
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Nick Foligno not thinking retirement, just enjoying the moment: Blackhawks thoughts
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Colorado won two out of three matchups against Los Angeles last season, most notably winning 4-0 on Mar. 27.
The Avalanche won the final matchup between these two sides, beating the Kings 5-4 on the road on Apr. 12.
New York won three out of four games against Pittsburgh last season, including a 6-0 win on opening night.
The Penguins’ lone win came on Feb. 7 at Madison Square Garden, beating the Rangers 3-2 behind goals from Blake Lizotte, Rickard Rakell and Philip Tomasino.
The Blackhawks were once the team that other teams had to sit through their Stanley Cup banner ceremonies. It’s been a minute, though. Lately, they’ve had to watch others raise theirs.
The Blackhawks were the visiting team when the Colorado Avalanche lifted their banner to start the 2022-23 season and will be again in the building when the Florida Panthers do theirs tonight.
Such ceremonies can include a lot of pomp and circumstance, and while exciting for Cup winners and their fans, usually not so much for the opposing team who just want to get the season going. But Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno hopes his team absorbs the Panthers’ ceremony in a more productive way.
“It’s probably a nice way for us to see what we want to obtain one day,” Foligno said on Monday. “As painful as it might be to sit there and watch, I hope to make another team do it for us one day. I think it’s neat for us to see the hard work and dedication that’s gone into a Stanley Cup championship team. As a team trying to get there, it’s going to be a lesson for us. I’m looking at it as a positive for guys to see this and want to feel that on the other side of it.”
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