NHL Unveils Details for 2022 Global Series

The NHL is headed back overseas. 

After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NHL Global Series is back in business for the first time since 2019, featuring two preseason games and four regular-season games scheduled to take place outside North America at the start of the 2022-23 campaign. 

Kicking off the festivities are the San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators, who are set to play a pair of games against each other on Oct. 7 and 8 at O2 Arena in Prague, Czechia. 

Prior to that two-game slate, the Predators will take on SC Bern of the Swiss National League in a preseason matchup held at PostFinance Arena in Bern, Switzerland on Oct. 3. The Sharks, on the other hand, will take part in a preseason friendly of their own versus Eisbaren Berlin of the German DEL at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin, Germany on Oct. 4. 

SC Bern had previously matched up against an NHL team back in 2017, losing to the New Jersey Devils by a score of 3-2 in overtime. Eisbaren Berlin has tangled with an NHL opponent of their own on two occasions, dropping a 4-1 contest to the Tampa Bay Lightning back in 2008, along with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks in 2019. 

The other half of the 2022 Global Series will feature the Colorado Avalanche and Columbus Blue Jackets, with the two teams set to play a pair of games in Tampere, Finland on Nov. 4 and 5. 

Despite hosting preseason games in 2009 and 2010, this will mark the first time ever that regular-season NHL games are played in the city of Tampere. 

With the return of overseas travel, it's nice to see normalcy return to the NHL.