Buckle up Vancouver Canucks fans, the NHL is going to see some significant changes in 2026-2027.

According to The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun, the NHL is putting the wheels in motion to introduce four rule changes that were hinted at when the new CBA was first announced: the preseason will be shortened, the regular season will begin in late September, the Stanley Cup will be awarded in mid-June, and the regular season will be extended to 84 games.

The biggest change is the addition of regular-season games, increasing from 82 to 84 games. Now, this won’t be the first time the NHL played 84 games. The league experimented with an 84-game schedule in the 1992-1993 and 1993-1994 seasons, before reducing the regular season to 82 games in 1995-1996 – the 1994-1995 season was shortened to 48 due to a lockout. Outside of lockout years and the COVID-19 shortened seasons, the NHL has remained at 82 games since then.

If the NHL is lengthening the regular season while also aiming to award the Stanley Cup in mid-June rather than late June, then the league has no choice but to start earlier. Outside of lockouts and shortened seasons, the NHL has begun its regular season within the first two weeks of October in all but one year since the 1966-1967 campaign. The one outlier was the 2007-2008 season, which began on September 29.

One of the biggest criticisms of the NHL over the past few seasons has been the late awarding of the Stanley Cup Final. Two seasons ago, the Stanley Cup was awarded on June 24, with the draft starting just three days later on June 27, and free agency commencing one week after the playoffs concluded. Last season, the league gave one week between the latest possible end of the playoffs and the draft. However, that left just three days for league managers to finalize the draft and transition to free agency mode.

The preseason was already shortened recently, going from eight games in 2017-2018 to seven in 2018-2019. But ahead of the 2025-2026 season, the Canucks play just six preseason games – two against the Seattle Kraken, Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers. And now the NHL is shortening the preseason even further.

All of these changes work in tandem to support the league’s desire to expand to an 84-game schedule starting in the 2026-2027 season.