How Long Is the NHL Season? 84 Games in 2026-27, and How It Got There

The NHL season in 2026-27 consists of 84 games per team, compared to the 82 that have been played each year since 1995-96. This takes place between 29 September 2026 and 10 April 2027, lasting about six-and-a-half months. Including the playoffs, a team making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final could potentially play until late June, making the season about eight-and-a-half months.

It represents the first adjustment to the season length in over three decades. What is more, it is not even a novel number – something most media outlets overlook completely. Here is the current season structure, along with every change the league has ever made to it since 1917.

NHL Season Length at a Glance:

Current for 2026-27, with the historical context that matters.

Games per team, 2026-27	84
Previous total	82, the standard from 1995-96 through 2025-26
Home and away split	42 home and 42 away
Total league games	1,344 across 32 teams, up from 1,312 under an 82-game schedule
Regular season start	29 September 2026
Regular season end	10 April 2027
Regular season length in time	Roughly six and a half months
Playoffs	Four best-of-seven rounds, typically April to June
Full season length including playoffs	Roughly eight and a half months for a team that reaches the Final
Maximum games for a Cup finalist	112: 84 regular season plus up to 28 playoff games
Preseason	Limited to four games under the new collective bargaining agreement
Breaks	Holiday break 23 to 25 December, All-Star break 4 to 7 February 2027
Why it changed	The new collective bargaining agreement. Each team’s two extra games are a home and away fixture against a divisional opponent
Longest season since	1993-94, the last time teams played 84 games
First season ever	1917-18, when teams played 22 games
Shortest modern seasons	48 games in 1994-95 and 2012-13 due to lockouts, and 56 games in 2020-21 due to the pandemic
Season never played	2004-05, cancelled entirely by a lockout
September starts	2026-27 is only the second in league history, after 2007-08

Why the NHL Went to 84 Games:

This new system is a direct result of the latest collective bargaining agreement signed by the league and the players’ union. For each team, the two additional games are played as a home-away match against an opponent from its division, thereby placing more pressure on old feuds and not adding more travel. The compromise comes at the beginning of the schedule. The preseason is reduced to four games from the usual six or seven games, so there is less of an increase and more of a shift in priorities. More counted games, less preseason games. Across the league, this adds up to 1,344 regular season games as compared to 1,312.

How Long the Season Is in Calendar Terms:

That’s the easy part of the calculation, and the one that most articles focus on. The 2026-27 season gets under way on 29 September 2026, and ends on 10 April 2027. It’s just shy of six months of hockey, with a game planned for virtually every day in between. There are only two days during the period not in the scheduled breaks where there are no games whatsoever.

After that come the playoffs, which last from April right through until June. A full participant in all four rounds of the postseason would then be scheduled for another 28 games, so a team advancing to the final round could possibly end up playing 112 games in one season. And for the second time ever, the 2026-27 campaign starts in September. The only other occurrence happened back in 2007-08 when the Ducks took on the Kings at the O2 Arena in London.

How the NHL Season Length Has Changed Since 1917:

The schedule has grown almost continuously for a century, and each jump has a specific cause. Expansion drove most of them.

• 1917-18: The NHL’s first season. Teams played 22 games.
• 1918 to 1926: A volatile stretch in which teams played anywhere from 18 to 36 games as the league added and lost franchises.
• 1926-27 onward: The schedule settled into a range of 44 to 60 games. By 1931 teams were playing 48.
• The 1940s: The wartime and immediate post-war years brought further growth, moving through 50 and then 60 games.
• 1949-50: The 70-game schedule arrived. It held through the entire Original Six era, when the same six clubs played each other 14 times a year.
• 1967-68: The league doubled from six teams to twelve and the schedule went to 74 games.
• 1968-69: Up to 76 games.
• 1970-71: Up to 78 games, following the addition of Buffalo and Vancouver.
• 1974-75: Up to 80 games, after Washington and Kansas City joined and the league split into two conferences and four divisions. This total held for 18 seasons.
• 1992-93: 84 games for the first time, under the labour agreement signed after the 1992 players’ strike. The schedule included two home games played at neutral sites.
• 1993-94: 84 games again, the second and, until now, last season at that length.
• 1994-95: Cut to 48 games by a lockout.
• 1995-96: The 82-game schedule was introduced. It became the standard for the next 30 seasons.
• 2004-05: No season at all. The entire campaign was cancelled by a lockout, the only time a major North American league has lost a full season to a labour dispute.
• 2012-13: Cut to 48 games by another lockout.
• 2019-20: Suspended in March by the pandemic and never completed. Teams finished with between 68 and 71 games before the postseason was reworked.
• 2020-21: A shortened 56-game season with temporarily realigned divisions to limit travel.
• 2026-27: 84 games, the longest schedule since 1993-94.

So the 84-Game Season Is Not New:

It bears repeating, since the reporting on the move often treats 84 games as something novel. NHL seasons in 1992-93 and 1993-94 were made up of 84 games each. But that 1992-93 campaign was remarkable not only for the number of games in the schedule, but for Mario Lemieux’s spectacular goal-scoring year in which there were 7,311 goals scored during 1,008 games, the most goals in regular-season NHL history, and it ended with Montreal defeating Los Angeles for the Stanley Cup. This marks the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup.

There was one aspect of the schedule that was unique to the early-1990s 84-game schedule, in which two neutral site games were part of each team’s schedule. This year’s 84-game schedule doesn’t include that, as the two additional games are just divisional games.

What the 82 Games Were Made Of:

In the 82-game schedule that was utilized between 1995-96 through 2025-26, the teams would play 26 games within their respective division, 24 games against the remaining teams within their conference, and 32 against the other conference, playing each one of these 16 teams both at home and on the road once. This is not altered by the changes made to the 2026-27 season. They simply add another home and road game against a team within their division.

Why the Season Keeps Getting Longer:

Two factors pushing in the same direction for a hundred years. Firstly, expansion. With every expansion of the NHL, the league had to create more dates so that there was a reasonable balance of opponents for each club. Three expansions in 1967, 1970, and 1974 were all consequences of the franchise expansion.

Secondly, revenues. The regular season produces revenues from attendance, broadcast, and sponsorship rights. More games equal more of those, and that is the reason why the number of games in the regular season has never changed but grown in any other way except during lockouts and the pandemic. The balancing factor is the well-being of players and the burden of travel, the argument which players’ association always brings against extended seasons. The compromise in 2026-27 by reducing the preseason and adding just two games demonstrates that well.

Final Take:

The NHL season comprises 84 games in 2026-27, spread over around six-and-a-half months from late September to mid-April, followed by a further two months of playoff games. This is the longest schedule since 1993-94, the third occasion on which there have been 84 games. While starting from 22 games in 1917, there has been a clear pattern since then, with all the deviations being due to lockouts, wartime contraction, and pandemics.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Also read about: How Many NHL Teams Are There? The Full 2026-27 Answer