Blackhawks 2026-27 schedule takeaways: Connor Bedard return, familiar faces and more

Posted July 16, 2026 3:46 pm

By Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus

The Chicago Blackhawks will open the season in September for the first time in franchise history when they visit the Vegas Golden Knights on Sept. 29. Will they be playing in late April? That depends on what happens in the 84 games in between.

The NHL released its 2026-27 schedule Thursday afternoon, as the league switches to an 84-game slate for the first time since the 1993-94 season. Here are some first-glance takeaways:

1. City-dwellers and sportswriters on deadlines rejoice. Far suburban fans recoil. The Blackhawks have shifted the start of most home games to 7 p.m. CT rather than 7:30 p.m. Chicago tried this for the 2013-14 season, and enough season ticket holders — a good chunk of whom live in the North and West suburbs — complained about the traffic issue to convince the team to go back to 7:30 p.m. starts. But 7 p.m. starts are commonplace around the league, and a recent internal team survey found that current fans wanted the games to start earlier. That should make life easier for kids who want to attend weeknight games or watch them on television. A whopping nine afternoon home games are a bonus. The Blackhawks had a lot of success two seasons ago with their kid-centric “Best Day Ever” theme on weekend afternoon games.

2. The Blackhawks will start on the road for the ninth consecutive season (including the 2019-20 season, which began in Prague). Their last home opener to begin a season came in 2017.

Of their past eight road trips, they returned to Chicago with a winning record after one of them.

2025-26: Two games, 0-1-1 record

2024-25: Four games, 1-2-1

2023-24: Five games, 2-3-0

2022-23: Three games, 1-2-0

2021-22: Three games, 0-2-1

2020-21: Four games, 0-3-1

2019-20: One game, 0-1-0

2018:19: Two games, 2-0-0

As for why the Blackhawks consistently start on the road, the belief is that the league likes to tap into the Blackhawks’ large audience and use that to help pump up a national broadcast game. Teams have little say in their own schedule, too. They’re able to ask to tweak the schedule if needed, especially when their building is occupied otherwise, but it’s not much.

3. You know Connor Bedard is dissecting this schedule just like everyone else and trying to figure out where and when he might be able to make his return. Bedard’s shoulder surgery was on July 8, with a recovery timeline of four months. The Blackhawks have four days off before hosting the Buffalo Sabres (and maybe Patrick Kane?) on Nov. 12, so that’s a very loose target, assuming all goes well with Bedard’s rehab.

4. The Blackhawks playing in the Sabres’ home opener on Oct. 3 certainly seems a lot more interesting than it would have a few months ago. Kane is weighing his options as an unrestricted free agent. Blackhawks ambassador Chris Chelios said on “670 The Score” in Chicago on Wednesday that Kane was down to the Blackhawks and the Sabres. We recently weighed whether Buffalo or Chicago would be a better fit for Kane.

It doesn’t sound like there is an exact timeline for Kane’s decision. He has been training at the Blackhawks Ice Center, as he does every offseason.

5. The earlier start to the season is designed to accommodate the two extra games on the schedule. With the extra week or two, plus no Olympic break, the schedule is a lot less condensed this season. That probably means Spencer Knight gets an even larger percentage of the starts in net. While many teams are going to true tandems in net, Knight is the clear No. 1 and should end up with the kind of workload Connor Hellebuyck, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Igor Shesterkin get.

Last season, Knight started 55 games, which was about 67% of the season. Arvid Söderblom started 24 games, roughly 29%.

6. The Blackhawks have four breaks of at least five days (including right before and right after their two-game set against Ottawa in Düsseldorf, Germany, on Dec. 18 and 20). The Blackhawks have 12 back-to-backs, one more than last season.

7. The days of the circus trip and ice-show trip are long gone, but it’s still remarkable that the Blackhawks have just three road trips of more than three games. The longest is a nine-day trek through Dallas, Montreal, New York (the Rangers), New Jersey and Philadelphia that starts on Jan. 2. The others are four-game jaunts in late March and early April.

The Blackhawks do have seven three-game trips.

Meanwhile, after starting with four road games in their first five, the Blackhawks will be home for 19 straight nights, an incredibly rare stretch by NHL standards.

8. Anytime Connor McDavid comes to town, it’s a game worth circling on the calendar. But Edmonton’s Dec. 6 appearance at United Center also will allow Chicago fans to show their appreciation for defensive stalwart Connor Murphy, who was a model citizen and teammate for nine seasons in Chicago. Jason Dickinson and Colton Dach (both of whom were, like Murphy, re-signed by the Oilers) also will be welcomed back.

9. Let’s say the Blackhawks exceed expectations and are playing meaningful games in late March and early April. If that’s the case, their schedule lines up potentially favorably over the final nine games. They face Nashville three times in the span, Seattle twice and Columbus once. You add in a game against Washington, and that’s seven games against four teams who failed to make the playoffs last season. Maybe that means something, maybe not.

10. What’s your guess at the Blackhawks’ record for the 2026-27 season? Remember, there are 84 games this season.