Prepare for a grueling road start against the Cup champion Hurricanes before a celebratory October homecoming. From holiday clashes to emotional reunions, discover the pivotal stretches defining Florida's quest.
It’s time to start circling dates on the calendar and planning road trips.
On Thursday, the NHL released its full 2026-27 schedule for all 32 of its teams.
For the Florida Panthers, there were several games and dates that jumped off the page.
As we learned on Wednesday when the league released the home opening matchups for every team, the Panthers will begin with four straight road games, starting with a Stanley Cup banner raising in Raleigh against the Carolina Hurricanes on Sept. 29 followed by a west coast trip stopping in San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles on Oct. 1, Oct. 4 and Oct. 6, respectively.
Florida’s home opener is set for Oct. 10 against the Minnesota Wild.
Interestingly, the Panthers will 13 games during the month of October (not including Opening Night in Raleigh on Sept. 29), but only four of them will be on home ice.
Some other notable games in Sunrise include the return of Sergei Bobrovsky on March 6 against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the returns of Evan Rodrigues and Jesper Boqvist when the New Jersey Devils come to town on Feb. 18.
Around the holidays, Florida will have several home games.
They face the Ottawa Senators the night before Thanksgiving on Nov. 25 and are in Washington the night after on Nov. 27 before hosting the Tampa Bay Lightning the following Saturday on Nov. 28.
In December, the Panthers will go into the Christmas holiday break with home games on Dec. 19 against the Calgary Flames and Dec. 21 against the St. Louis Blues before coming out of the break on Dec. 26 against Tampa followed by matchups on Dec. 28 against the Nashville Predators and Dec. 30 against the Buffalo Sabres.
That will be one of two five-game homestands for Florida, with the other coming from March 2 through March 12.
The Panthers will have two five-game road trips, tied for their longest of the season.
The first will be in early January when they travel to Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Seattle and Minnesota over the course of 11 days, then in mid-March Florida will travel to Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Buffalo and Tampa Bay that will last 10 days.
Florida will also host the Montreal Canadiens on Jan. 2 after traveling to Nashville on New Year's Day for a 1 p.m. matchup with the Preds.
The Cats will close the season with home games on April 6 against Montreal, April 9 against the Boston Bruins and April 10 against Carolina.
You can check out the full schedule below:
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Photo caption: Dec 5, 2024; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Florida Panthers center Sam Reinhart (13), center Aleksander Barkov (16) and left wing Matthew Tkachuk (19) against the Philadelphia Flyers at Wells Fargo Center. (Eric Hartline-Imagn Images)
