On Wednesday afternoon, the New Jersey Devils announced their schedule for the 2025-26 NHL season. Today, I am going over the schedule and sharing what I see as some positives and negatives about the job the NHL did here.

Positive: The Devils Start on the Road

The New Jersey Devils have the latest home opener in the league. The first games of the season are on October 7. Six teams play that night. But the Devils do not start on October 8, either: their first game of the season is on October 9 against Carolina. 20 of the 32 teams will have had their home opener by that night, but the Devils will stay on the road. These are the teams to have a home opener later than October 9:

October 11: Calgary Flames, Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild, New York Islanders

October 13: Columbus Blue Jackets, Ottawa Senators, Philadelphia Flyers
October 14: Anaheim Ducks, Dallas Stars, Montreal Canadiens
October 15: Utah Mammoth
October 16: New Jersey Devils

Personally, I would rather the team have some extra home games down the stretch than deal with a bunch of road trips in March and April, so I like seeing that the team is going to be late to get into the Rock. This way, they can also take a win or two back home, rather than worry about wasting a home stand to start the season.

Positive: The Devils Have Early Challenges

Six of the first seven games the Devils play are against playoff teams. The non-playoff team, Columbus, was on the bubble in the 2024-25 season. The Devils only play two games in October against a team that was not close to the playoffs last season when they play San Jose at home on Friday, October 24, before facing them on their first western road trip, which starts with a home-and-home with Colorado.

I do not see an “easy” stretch until the end of November and December, at which point the quality of competition seems to take a step back. In December, only six of the 15 games are against 2024-25 playoff teams. Before that, 14 of the 25 games they play are against recent playoff teams. However, if you exclude the last five games of November, 13 of the first 20 games the Devils play are expected to be tougher matchups. Of course, teams like Detroit (11/24), Columbus (10/13), or Pittsburgh (11/8) can probably contend in the Wild Card bubble, but they all missed last season.

Positive: The Devils Have No 10:30 ET Starts

People who have to wake up early in the morning for work, rejoice. With the league pushing teams to schedule more games in the 7:00 PM slot, the Devils will have no games starting at 10:30 PM Eastern Time when the team is on the west coast. While that half-hour might not seem like much, it is the difference between a game finishing by 12:30 and a game finishing after 1:00 AM. Now, I would love if the league pushed for even earlier local weekday starts than 7:00, such as 6:30 or 6:45 (which would mean we would actually have puck drop by 7:00), but I will take this for the time being. However, they still have not perfected the Frozen Frenzy:

In this spread, the NHL skipped over 6:15, 9:15, and 9:45 Eastern Time. I have no clue why these games couldn’t have been scheduled to fill the former two times, with the Kings and Sharks able to start their game at 7:00 local time or 10:00 Eastern, if they really have a problem with a potential 6:45 start time. That would have slid the Devils up to 8:45, and it would have prevented Montreal Fans from having to wait until 10:30 for their game to start. Some fans and writers have also pointed out that doing this on a Tuesday is a little odd, and would be great for a Saturday with matinees starting at 12:30 Eastern.

Negative: 15 Back-to-Backs and an Imbalanced Rest Schedule

Per HockeyViz, the Devils have one of the most imbalanced schedules in the NHL in terms of rest, with four more instances of playing rested teams while tired than the other way around. Only Seattle, Colorado, Carolina (-5), and San Jose (-6) have similarly or more imbalanced schedules.

In addition to the imbalanced rest schedule, the Devils also have 15 back-to-backs on their schedule. To be honest, the back-to-backs only bother me when rest imbalance coincides with them, so I am not too concerned about the overall number of them. You can see how the Devils compare to other teams in terms of back-to-back sets below:

On average, NHL teams are getting one more back-to-back this season compared to last season. (2024-25 teams had an average of 12.4 back-to-back games) pic.twitter.com/9WuknZKOqI

— NHLtoSeattle (@NHLtoSeattle) July 16, 2025

What I do not get here is how the league can have teams like the Sharks, Devils, and Hurricanes playing more back-to-backs than average while highly rest-advantaged teams like the Bruins, Rangers, Penguins, and Ducks play fewer. At least Seattle and Colorado did not get doubly-screwed by the league with rest and back-to-backs, but this has been an issue they have been in need of fixing for many years now.

Counter-Positive: The Devils Barely Go West After the Olympic Break

After the Devils return to play on February 25, they only play Western Conference teams on the road five times:

2/28 — @St. Louis
3/24 — @Dallas
3/26 — @Nashville

Even with those games against the Western Conference, the Devils do not have to travel to Canada or to the west coast at all beyond the January 25 matchup against Seattle. Maybe this helps the team develop a rhythm just in time for the playoffs, as their travel schedule becomes a lot easier after their top players return from the Olympics.

Negative: The Devils Play the Rangers and Flyers Only Three Times Each

Who approved this one? For a league that is trying to push rivalries, rivalries, and rivalries as much as the NHL has, it is flabbergasting to have only three matchups between the Rangers and Devils. Those games are also all in March: on 3/7, 3/18, and 3/31. The Devils only have one home game against them, on 3/7. If I had bought season tickets this year (I decided to wait until next year), I would be pretty annoyed. But I am concerned about these games being so late. They might be fun if both teams are in a playoff spot at the end of the season, but they will be boring if one team is well out of it. Last season, the Rangers fell apart by the New Year and did not recover, while the Devils missed just two seasons ago. Given their collective age and dubious offensive ability beyond Panarin, I would not be surprised if the Rangers went down a similar road this season.

The Devils also only play the Philadelphia Flyers three times. I would be more enraged if Philadelphia was a decent team, but these games are largely hack-shows in which the Devils completely outclass them in the game of hockey while trying to avoid season or career-altering injuries. The Devils play them on 11/22, 11/29, and 4/7, with only the first of those three being on the road.

Negative: The Matinee Schedule

While the league learned that Western Conference teams should not be scheduling games at 7:30 PM local time when they have Eastern Conference visitors, they have not learned that 12:30 PM matinees on the east coast are not ideal for west coast teams. The Devils have the following afternoon games this season:

10/18: Edmonton — 3:30 Eastern
10/25: Colorado — 1:00 PM Eastern
11/8: Pittsburgh — 12:30 Eastern
12/13: Anaheim — 12:30 Eastern
12/14: Vancouver — 12:30 Eastern
1/3: Utah — 3:00 Eastern
1/11: @Winnipeg — 2:00 Eastern

1/25: @Seattle — 4:00 Eastern

3/7: NY Rangers — 3:00 Eastern
3/28: @Carolina — 5:00 Eastern

4/11: @Detroit — 5:00 Eastern

If you like on the west coast and you are not a morning person, the games highlighted in December might be particularly annoying for you. And here is a terrible approach in marketing for the NHL: why is the Hughes Bowl a Sunday matinee with a mismatched time zone? On the other end of the spectrum, the hopeful round two is on a January Thursday in Vancouver with a 7:00 PM local start, meaning that a large chunk of both interested viewing parties will be well out of normal sports-viewing time at the times both games air. I do not understand it. With how wide-open the Hughes discussions are at this point, the league has to realize that they will not have many more opportunities to market the brothers playing against each other, one way or another. One or both of those games should be in primetime.

And as a Devils fan that really likes an afternoon game, I hate the way this overall matinee schedule goes. Was 1:00 on Sunday, the same time as Giants-Eagles AND Jets-Bengals, the best time to schedule a home matinee for the Devils? Likewise, the Hughes Bowl is the same time as Jets-Jaguars and Giants-Commander games. So, the only Sunday matinee games the Devils have scheduled during football season happen to occur during both local teams’ matchups. Great job, NHL. It’s not like the NFL schedule hasn’t been out for awhile now.

And then beyond that, the Devils barely play any such games after the New Year, with no 1:00 games and only two matinees at home. One of those is well-designed, with the league giving the Devils a few extra hours of rest for their back-to-back in early March against the Rangers and Red Wings, but I otherwise don’t see why the Devils couldn’t have gotten a few more games at least in the 4:00 time slot, especially in the early spring when they do not have a ton of rivalry games and a ton of back-to-backs. As far as I can see, the Carolina and Detroit games could be earlier, with the Devils going home for 7:00 games the following nights. The 4/4 game against Montreal should also probably be between 1:00 and 4:00, with the teams going back to Montreal afterwards for a back-to-back home-and-home.

How the Devils Can Plan Ahead for the Challenges of the Schedule

Beyond my take on specific aspects of the schedule, I think the Olympic squeeze gives Tom Fitzgerald a very good reason not to trade Dougie Hamilton. Hamilton will be essential to the gauntlet run in the first month and a half of the season, and the low-rest realities of a schedule with an extended Olympic break means some Devils would benefit from a rotation down the stretch. If all seven of the Devils’ NHL defensemen stay healthy after Kovacevic’s return (not necessarily super-likely, anyway), there are six back-to-backs out of 25 total games following the Olympic break. Being able to rotate defensemen in and out of the lineup at that point, while not necessarily a luxury for the forwards (unless some young players push their way to the NHL), would be good for everyone on the blueline. It would also give Sheldon Keefe an opportunity to see what targeted matchups and approaches work against other teams’ styles ahead of the playoffs.

The early portion of the schedule makes it absolutely essential that Keefe also figure out who deserves to be in the top six pretty early on. We should not want to wait until December to find out that Arseni Gritsyuk or Evgeni Dadonov should be in the top six over Ondrej Palat, or to find out that Cody Glass can handle third-line duties and that Mercer can move up to top six wing. Now, if none of those players are able to push up the lineup for real performative reasons, that would be unfortunate, but the Devils kind of need those things to happen this season. If they want to compete for the Eastern Conference, they need those things to happen successfully.

But the Devils will need to have contingency plans this season. It is an Olympic year, and they have a lot of people that should be on Teams Switzerland and Sweden. They should also have Jack Hughes on Team USA, and possibly Dougie Hamilton in consideration for Team Canada if he has an excellent first few months. I would also be pleasantly surprised, but not too shocked if Brett Pesce or Luke Hughes were considered for Team USA on defense. And if Jake Allen ends up playing a lot of games early in the season, he could even be in consideration for Team Canada as a backup instead of Markstrom for Sweden. As much of an issue as some people make about the team’s conditioning, they will be tested this season. There is a chance some players will be able to play as many as 89 games this season between regular season matchups and Olympic games if they do not take any nights off.

Your Thoughts

What do you think about the schedule? Do you think the NHL did a fair job? Do you think anything about the schedule could have been improved? What do you think about my takes on the schedule? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.