Gary Bettman confirms major NHL change fans have been waiting for

The NHL will release its full 2026-27 schedule on July 16, and this one comes with real weight behind it.

For the first time since the 1993-94 season, the league is going to an 84-game regular season.

That's three decades of an 82-game standard about to disappear.

Bob Seravalli broke the news Tuesday morning, and it's already generating buzz across hockey circles.

Think about what 82 games has meant for this league. Cap counting, playoff races, tiebreakers, all of it built around that number.

Now teams get two extra dates to bank points, and in a league where the gap between a wild card spot and missing out can come down to a single game, that matters.

Why two extra games could shake up playoff races

Look at how tight things got at the finish line this past season. Buffalo grabbed the fourth spot in the Atlantic with 109 points, one ahead of Tampa Bay's 106 and Montreal's 106.

Toronto finished dead last in that division at 78 points, dropping their final seven straight.

Two more games doesn't sound like much until you're the team clinging to a wild card spot in March. It can be the difference between a home playoff game and a golf tee time.

There's also the scheduling logistics nobody talks about enough. More games means more back-to-backs, more road trips, more strain on goaltenders and bottom-six depth.

Teams that manage their bench and rotate bodies through a long homestand will have an edge teams that don't simply won't.

Will the extra games change how general managers build rosters this summer? Depth just got more valuable, and cap-strapped teams don't have a lot of room to add more of it.

The league hasn't said whether this format sticks beyond one season, and that's the real question nobody's answered yet.