The Colorado Avalanche will open the 2026-27 season at home on Sept. 30 against the Los Angeles Kings, the club announced Thursday as the NHL released its full schedule. It is the first September regular-season game the Avalanche/Nordiques franchise has ever played, and the second straight year Colorado and Los Angeles have met on opening night — the third time in the last four seasons.
The earlier start comes with a longer season. Every team moves to 84 games in 2026-27, a format the league last used in 1993-94, when this franchise was still in Quebec City. For Colorado, the practical effect is a heavier divisional diet: 28 games against Central opponents, with all seven rivals appearing four times. That tilts the calendar toward the matchups where the Avalanche did their best work last season — they went 16-5-5 in the division, and their 16 wins trailed only Dallas’s 17 among Central teams.
The marquee divisional date is one Colorado already knew about: the Winter Classic on Dec. 31 against the Utah Mammoth at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, announced back in April. The schedule release fills in the rest of the frame around it. Vegas appears twice in a three-day span — Jan. 2 at T-Mobile Arena and Jan. 4 at Ball Arena — the first meetings since the teams’ Western Conference Final. Former general manager Chris MacFarland returns with Nashville on Nov. 5, and the season closes April 10 at home against Minnesota.
The shape of the calendar is manageable. Colorado drew 10 back-to-back sets, an area where it has thrived — an 86-32-14 record in such games over the past six seasons — and gets nine home dates in January, its most in that month since 2022. Two five-game homestands, Dec. 12-20 and March 9-17, anchor the winter. Single-game tickets go on sale Aug. 14.
For fantasy purposes, the 84-game season means two extra games of counting stats, which matters most at the top of the roster — full-season ceilings for Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar just got a little higher. Colorado is also scheduled for 12 afternoon puck drops, worth flagging now for weekly-lineup managers who lose players to early starts, and that home-heavy January is a good month to lean on Avalanche skaters.
