{"id":623266,"date":"2026-07-15T16:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/623266\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T16:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T16:42:13","slug":"sharks-home-opener-announced-will-face-panthers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/623266\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks Home Opener Announced, Will Face Panthers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026-27 NHL schedule will be released in full on Thursday, but the San Jose Sharks will host their home opener on Oct. 1 against the Florida Panthers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The #SJSharks<\/a> home opener is Oct. 1 against the re-loaded Florida Panthers.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Max Miller (@Real_Max_Miller) July 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Based on the Sharks\u2019 initial social media release<\/a> of this game, this also appears to be the first game of the season. That game won\u2019t be the first of the season for the Panthers. Florida will also play in the NHL\u2019s first game of the season and be forced to watch the Carolina Hurricanes <\/a>raise their Stanley Cup banner on Sept. 29.<\/p>\n

Florida\/Carolina is the right choice for the banner raising. Excellent <\/p>\n

Both have won\u2026both at peak confidence\/power. A real rivalry. Great showcase. https:\/\/t.co\/aDqSKUTyHD<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) July 15, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

After winning back-to-back Stanley Cups, the Panthers had a down season in 25-26 but spent the entire 2026 off-season loading up. Their big acquisition is Brady Tkachuk<\/a>, joining his brother Matthew. They will also get Aleksander Barkov<\/a> back from a knee injury that cost him the season.<\/p>\n

For the San Jose Sharks, Florida represents an interesting first game, whether at home or in the season. The Sharks went 2-0 against the Panthers last season, in games that featured quite the emotions. Alex Nedeljkovic<\/a> got into a goalie fight with Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a>. Although that won\u2019t happen again, as Bob has moved on to the Toronto Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n

Vincent Desharnais scored and leveled Matthew Tkachuk in what was his first game of the season on Nov. 8, the same game as the goalie fight.<\/p>\n

So while the rosters for both the San Jose Sharks and Florida Panthers have changed, there could be some nice carryover into the new season. The Sharks are looking to take a step forward and make the playoffs in 26-27, and the Panthers are a perfect first match-up to throw them right into the fire.<\/p>\n

The NHL\u2019s new CBA also adds two games to the schedule, from 82 to 84.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026-27 NHL schedule will be released in full on Thursday, but the San Jose Sharks will host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5127],"tags":[57,5,16306,4,2967,519,168,5306,5305,1780,24660],"class_list":["post-623266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose-sharks","tag-florida-panthers","tag-hockey","tag-home-opener","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-schedule","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sanjose","tag-sanjosesharks","tag-sharks","tag-sj-sharks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116924995600168360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}