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When Do NHL Tickets Go On Sale? (2026-27 Season Guide)

by TicketScanner Team

Update:

Check today’s get-in prices for every NHL game on TicketScanner’s NHL page

Key Takeaways

  • The NHL released the 2026-27 schedule on July 16, 2026. Preseason runs Sept. 19-26, opening night is Tuesday, Sept. 29, and the 84-game regular season ends Saturday, April 10, 2027.
  • NHL single-game tickets go on sale team by team, not on one league-wide date. For 2026-27, public on-sales ran from July 17 (Boston) to Sept. 14 (Montreal), with most teams landing between Aug. 5 and Sept. 1.
  • Teams may run one or more presale windows before the public on-sale, for season-ticket holders, plan members and newsletter or text subscribers. A free email signup is usually enough to get a code.
  • Resale listings typically show up within a day of the schedule release, weeks before the public on-sale. As of Aug. 25, 2026, the median cheapest listed ticket ranged from $25 (Columbus) to $152 (Montreal), according to TicketScanner’s daily price tracking.

The 2026-27 NHL calendar: the dates that drive ticket sales

Ticket sales follow the schedule, so the schedule release is the first date to know. The NHL published its full 2026-27 regular-season schedule on Thursday, July 16, 2026. It covers 1,344 games, and every team plays 84 games, the first increase beyond 82 games in more than three decades.

Here is the rest of the 2026-27 calendar, per NHL.com:

  • Preseason: Saturday, Sept. 19 through Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. Just 65 exhibition games over eight days. The window is shorter than in past years because the new collective bargaining agreement added two divisional games per team to the regular season.
  • Opening night: Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026. The Carolina Hurricanes will raise their Stanley Cup banner before hosting the Florida Panthers at 5 p.m. ET. ESPN follows with the Rangers at the Bruins at 8 p.m. ET and Blackhawks-Golden Knights at 10:30 p.m. ET. Sportsnet carries Maple Leafs-Canadiens at 7 p.m. ET and Oilers-Canucks at 10 p.m. ET.
  • Heritage Classic: Oct. 25, 2026, Winnipeg Jets vs. Montreal Canadiens in Winnipeg.
  • Global Series: Hurricanes vs. Kraken in Helsinki on Nov. 12 and 14, Blackhawks vs. Senators in Dusseldorf on Dec. 18 and 20.
  • Winter Classic: Dec. 31, 2026, Utah Mammoth vs. Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah.
  • All-Star Weekend: Skills on Feb. 5 and the All-Star Game on Feb. 6, 2027, at UBS Arena, home of the Islanders.
  • Stadium Series: Feb. 20, 2027, Dallas Stars vs. Vegas Golden Knights at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
  • Last day of the regular season: Saturday, April 10, 2027.

If you searched for an “NHL ticket release date,” the honest answer is that there are 32 of them. The league sets the schedule. Each club decides when its own single-game tickets go on sale.

How NHL tickets go on sale: three waves

Every team follows the same order, even though the dates differ. Tickets move out in three waves, and the public on-sale is the last one.

Wave 1: Season-ticket holders and plan members

Full-season and partial-plan holders already own their seats before the schedule comes out. What they get at this stage is first access to additional single-game tickets, usually a few days ahead of everyone else.

The Boston Bruins gave season-ticket holders, Boston Garden Society members, Game Plan holders and waitlist members early access before the July 17 public sale. The Tampa Bay Lightning opened to Bolt for Life members on Aug. 11 and to Priority Access Club and Flex Plan holders on Aug. 12, three and two days before the public. The Nashville Predators opened to Smashville Loyal members on Aug. 24, a full week before the Sept. 1 public on-sale.

Wave 2: Presales for newsletter and text subscribers

This is the wave most fans can join for free. Nearly every team runs a presale for people on its email or text list, typically 24 hours before the public on-sale.

The Florida Panthers gave ’93 Society newsletter subscribers access on Aug. 12 at 10 a.m. ET, one day ahead of the Aug. 13 public sale. The Lightning Insider newsletter presale ran Aug. 13, one day before the Aug. 14 public sale. The St. Louis Blues opened to app and email subscribers on Aug. 20, with tickets on sale to the public as of Aug. 21. The Predators gave text and email subscribers access on Aug. 26 at 10 a.m. CT, six days before the public. The Bruins required a newsletter signup by midnight on July 16 for a presale before the July 17 on-sale.

Columbus (Flag Bearer newsletter), Philadelphia (Flyer Wire) and Montreal (ticket sales newsletter) all tie their presales to the same kind of list. The Edmonton Oilers offered a text line to notify fans when tickets go on sale.

Wave 3: General public on-sale

The general public on-sale is when tickets become available to anyone. The standard time is 10 a.m. local on a weekday, and the Bruins (2 p.m. ET on a Friday) and Islanders (12 p.m.) were the outliers. Public on-sales are first come, first served, and popular games can sell down within the presale windows before the public ever gets a look.

2026-27 NHL single-game on-sale dates by team

These are the public on-sale dates the teams announced for the 2026-27 season, with presale windows where the team published them. All dates are 2026.

Team Public on-sale Announced presales Primary seller
Boston Bruins Fri., July 17, 2 p.m. ET STH, Garden Society, Game Plan, waitlist, newsletter (sign up by July 16) BostonBruins.com / Ticketmaster
Philadelphia Flyers July 21 Flyer Wire newsletter PhiladelphiaFlyers.com
New York Islanders Fri., July 24, 12 p.m. Priority presale signup Ticketmaster
Columbus Blue Jackets Fri., July 31, 10 a.m. ET Flag Bearer newsletter CBJ app / Ticketmaster
Pittsburgh Penguins Wed., Aug. 5, 10 a.m. Not announced Ticketmaster
Florida Panthers Thu., Aug. 13, 10 a.m. ET ’93 Society newsletter, Aug. 12, 10 a.m. ET SeatGeek
Chicago Blackhawks On sale as of Aug. 13 Not announced Ticketmaster
Tampa Bay Lightning Fri., Aug. 14, 10 a.m. Aug. 11 members, Aug. 12 plan holders, Aug. 13 newsletter Ticketmaster
Washington Capitals On sale as of Aug. 14 Not announced Ticketmaster
Minnesota Wild Fri., Aug. 21, 10 a.m. Not announced SeatGeek
St. Louis Blues On sale as of Aug. 21 STH first, app/email subscribers Aug. 20 Ticketmaster
Edmonton Oilers Thu., Aug. 27, 10 a.m. Text alerts EdmontonOilers.com
Nashville Predators Tue., Sept. 1, 10 a.m. CT Smashville Loyal Aug. 24, text/email Aug. 26 Ticketmaster
Vegas Golden Knights Tue., Sept. 1, 10 a.m. PT Not announced AXS
Montreal Canadiens Sept. 14 Ticket sales newsletter Canadiens.com

The spread is wide: Boston sold single-game tickets the day after the schedule came out, while Montreal waited two months. A late on-sale date says more about a team’s sales calendar than its demand.

For the 17 teams not listed, check the tickets page on the team’s NHL.com site. Most had announced or opened sales by late August, and the team newsletter is the channel that delivers the exact date.

How NHL presale codes work

A presale code (Ticketmaster also calls it a passcode) opens access to tickets on an event page before the public on-sale. Here is how it works on Ticketmaster, which is the primary seller for most NHL teams:

  1. Get the code. Ticketmaster’s help center points to three sources: your Ticketmaster account (add the team to your Favorites and turn on email notifications), the team’s own newsletter or email list, and sponsor programs such as Citi and Chase card presales or T-Mobile and Verizon customer offers.
  2. Open the game page during the presale window and select the Unlock button next to the Filters button. Enter the code, and the map shows the seats available to that presale.
  3. Buy like a normal checkout. If the presale has a queue, you wait in the queue first and enter the code when it is your turn.

Two things Ticketmaster is clear about. A code does not guarantee a ticket, because the allotment can sell out during the presale. And a presale is about early access, not a discount. In practice, the price you see in a presale is the same face value the public sees a day later, so the advantage is seat choice, not savings.

Teams that sell through SeatGeek (Florida, Minnesota) or AXS (Vegas) send presale links to subscribers instead of a Ticketmaster passcode. The routine is the same: join the list, watch your inbox the day before the public on-sale.

When resale listings appear

Resale runs ahead of the primary on-sale, not behind it. Once the schedule is out, season-ticket holders start listing the games they do not plan to attend, and TickPick notes that fans can typically buy single-game tickets on secondary marketplaces within a day of the NHL schedule release.

For 2026-27, that means resale listings for most home games have been live since roughly July 17, weeks before the majority of public on-sales. Ticketmaster operates the NHL’s official ticket marketplace and resale platform. Ticketmaster says resale eligibility is set by each team or venue, and that Verified Resale tickets are reissued with new barcodes. One caveat from Ticketmaster’s own guide: resale tickets to home games for the Panthers, Kings, Minnesota Wild, Mammoth and Golden Knights are not Ticketmaster Verified, because those clubs use other primary sellers.

What NHL tickets cost once they are on sale

TicketScanner records the get-in price, the cheapest listed ticket for each game across the marketplaces it tracks, every day. The Aug. 25, 2026 snapshot, taken after most on-sales and before the season starts, shows how wide the gap is between markets. The figures below are the median of each team’s upcoming home games, before fees.

Team Home games tracked Median get-in Lowest game Highest game
Columbus Blue Jackets 34 $25 $8 $49
St. Louis Blues 34 $31 $9 $82
Florida Panthers 32 $36 $14 $96
New York Rangers 34 $120 $42 $197
Toronto Maple Leafs 34 $150 $96 $323
Montreal Canadiens 39 $152 $78 $264

Source: TicketScanner daily price tracking, snapshot Aug. 25, 2026, home games, USD before fees.

Across the league, the median team get-in price is about $50, the cheapest quarter of teams sit under $41, and five teams are above $80, according to the same TicketScanner snapshot. Toronto, Montreal and the Rangers are the most expensive entry points; Columbus, St. Louis and Florida are the cheapest. This is a preseason snapshot, and prices move daily. The full 32-team table is in our guide to the cheapest NHL tickets team by team.

One note on timing. TicketScanner has no NHL price-over-time data yet because the season has not started. The closest reference is TicketScanner’s MLB tracking of 456 completed games from May 22 to Aug. 25, 2026, where the median get-in price fell about 17% from the 31-60 day window ($29) to the final two weeks ($24) and then stayed flat through game day. That is MLB data, not NHL, and we will publish the NHL curve as the season plays out in our guide to the best time to buy NHL tickets.

What to do if a game is “sold out”

“Sold out” on a team site or Ticketmaster means the primary allotment is gone. It rarely means no tickets exist.

  • Check resale first. Ticketmaster’s NHL FAQ says that when games sell out, resale tickets from other fans are available through the NHL Ticket Exchange. Other marketplaces carry their own listings for the same game.
  • Compare sites, not just one. The get-in price for one game can differ by marketplace on the same day, and the cheapest site changes.
  • Watch the price instead of buying on day one. Resale inventory grows as season-ticket holders decide which games to give up, and TicketScanner logs the daily get-in price so you can see whether a game is trending up or down before you commit.

Winter Classic, Stadium Series and playoff tickets

The league’s special events run on their own calendar, and both 2026-27 outdoor games in the U.S. went on sale before the regular schedule did. Stadium Series tickets for Stars-Golden Knights at AT&T Stadium went on sale Thursday, May 21, 2026, at 10 a.m. CT through SeatGeek. Winter Classic tickets for Mammoth-Avalanche at Rice-Eccles Stadium went on sale Tuesday, June 16, 2026, at 10 a.m. MT through Ticketmaster.

Playoff tickets follow a different path. Ticketmaster’s NHL buying guide says tickets for first-round playoff matchups go on sale as teams clinch berths around mid-March.

FAQ

When are NHL tickets released for the 2026-27 season?

The NHL released the 2026-27 schedule on July 16, 2026, and teams opened single-game sales individually after that. The earliest public on-sale was Boston on July 17, and the latest announced was Montreal on Sept. 14. Most teams fell between Aug. 5 and Sept. 1.

Is there one NHL ticket release date every year?

No. The league releases the schedule in one shot, usually in July (July 16 in both 2025 and 2026), but each of the 32 teams sets its own single-game on-sale date. Expect a spread from the week of the schedule release through mid-September.

How do I get an NHL presale code?

Sign up for the team’s email or text list, and add the team to your Favorites in your Ticketmaster account with notifications on. Teams send the code or presale link the day before the public on-sale. Some credit cards (Citi, Chase) and carriers (T-Mobile, Verizon) run their own presales through Ticketmaster.

Are NHL single game tickets on sale now?

As of late August 2026, most teams have opened single-game sales for 2026-27. A few, including Nashville and Vegas (Sept. 1) and Montreal (Sept. 14), had not yet reached their public on-sale date. Resale listings for nearly every game have been available since the schedule release.

Are NHL presale tickets cheaper than public on-sale tickets?

No. A presale gives you earlier access and a better pick of seats, and in practice the face value is the same as at the public on-sale. Ticketmaster’s presale guide describes presales as early access and notes that a code does not guarantee a ticket.

Compare get-in prices across marketplaces for every 2026-27 NHL game on TicketScanner’s NHL page

Sources

  • https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-releases-2026-27-regular-season-schedule (schedule released July 16, 2026; 84 games per team, 1,344 total; opening night Sept. 29 matchups; April 10 finale; All-Star, outdoor and Global Series dates)
  • https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/49376073/nhl-releases-expanded-84-game-schedule-2026-27-season (first 84-game season since 1992-94)
  • https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-releases-2025-26-regular-season-schedule (2025-26 schedule released July 16, 2025)
  • https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-announces-home-openers-for-2026-27-season (opening night Sept. 29 tripleheader on ESPN and doubleheader on Sportsnet)
  • https://www.nhl.com/news/2026-2027-preseason-nhl-schedule-to-begin-september-19-2026 (preseason Sept. 19-26, 65 games, shortened under the CBA)
  • https://www.nhl.com/bruins/news/nhl-announces-boston-bruins-2026-27-regular-season-schedule-individual-game-tickets-to-go-on-sale-friday-july-17-at-2-p-m (Bruins on-sale July 17, 2 p.m. ET; presale groups; newsletter deadline)
  • https://www.nhl.com/flyers/news/flyers-2026-27-single-game-tickets-on-sale-now (Flyers on sale July 21; Flyer Wire presale)
  • https://www.nhl.com/islanders/news/islanders-announce-2026-27-regular-season-schedule (Islanders public on-sale July 24, 12 p.m.; priority presale signup; Ticketmaster)
  • https://www.nhl.com/bluejackets/news/blue-jackets-single-game-tickets-on-sale-26-27 (Blue Jackets on-sale July 31, 10 a.m. ET; Flag Bearer presale)
  • https://www.nhl.com/penguins/news/penguins-2026-27-single-game-tickets-on-sale-wednesday-august-5-at-10-00-am (Penguins on-sale Aug. 5, 10 a.m.; Ticketmaster)
  • https://www.nhl.com/panthers/news/florida-panthers-2026-27-single-game-tickets-go-on-sale-thursday-aug-13-at-10-a-m-et (Panthers on-sale Aug. 13; ’93 Society presale Aug. 12; SeatGeek)
  • https://www.nhl.com/blackhawks/news/release-blackhawks-single-game-tickets-on-sale-now (Blackhawks on sale as of Aug. 13; Ticketmaster)
  • https://www.nhl.com/lightning/news/tampa-bay-lightning-single-game-tickets-to-go-on-sale-friday-august-14-2026 (Lightning on-sale Aug. 14; three presale windows Aug. 11-13)
  • https://www.nhl.com/capitals/news/capitals-single-game-tickets-now-available-for-2026-27-season (Capitals on sale as of Aug. 14; Ticketmaster and NHL Ticket Exchange)
  • https://www.nhl.com/wild/news/minnesota-wild-single-game-tickets-for-2026-27-season-on-sale-friday-august-21-082026 (Wild on-sale Aug. 21, 10 a.m.; SeatGeek)
  • https://www.nhl.com/blues/news/single-game-tickets-on-sale-aug-21 (Blues on sale as of Aug. 21; STH presale; app/email presale Aug. 20)
  • https://www.nhl.com/oilers/news/release-oilers-announce-2026-27-promotional-schedule (Oilers on-sale Aug. 27, 10 a.m.; text alerts)
  • https://www.nhl.com/predators/news/nashville-predators-announce-single-game-on-sale-and-theme-nights-for-2026-27-season-2026-08-17 (Predators on-sale Sept. 1, 10 a.m. CT; Smashville Loyal Aug. 24; subscriber presale Aug. 26)
  • https://www.nhl.com/goldenknights/tickets/single-game (Golden Knights on-sale Sept. 1, 10 a.m. PT; 42 home games; AXS)
  • https://www.nhl.com/canadiens/news/canadiens-announce-2026-27-special-event-games-aug-18-2026 (Canadiens public on-sale Sept. 14; newsletter presale)
  • https://help.ticketmaster.com/hc/en-us/articles/9702132309905-How-do-presales-work (Unlock button, codes do not guarantee tickets, sponsor presales)
  • https://help.ticketmaster.com/hc/en-us/articles/9670692314897-Where-do-I-get-a-presale-or-offer-code (Favorites and notifications, team newsletters, Citi/Chase, T-Mobile/Verizon)
  • https://blog.ticketmaster.com/presale-codes/ (presales as early access; queue behavior; how codes are assigned)
  • https://blog.ticketmaster.com/nhl-faqs/ (NHL Ticket Exchange; resale eligibility set by team or venue; resale tickets when games sell out)
  • https://blog.ticketmaster.com/nhl-tickets-buyers-guide/ (Verified Resale barcodes; Panthers, Kings, Mammoth, Golden Knights resale not Ticketmaster Verified; playoff tickets around mid-March)
  • https://www.tickpick.com/blog/when-do-nhl-tickets-go-on-sale-nhl-schedule-tickets/ (resale listings appear within a day of the schedule release as season-ticket holders list)
  • https://www.nhl.com/news/2027-nhl-stadium-series-tickets-go-on-sale-may-21 (Stadium Series on-sale May 21, 2026, 10 a.m. CT, SeatGeek)
  • https://www.nhl.com/news/colorado-utah-winter-classic-tickets-go-on-sale-june-16-2026 (Winter Classic on-sale June 16, 2026, 10 a.m. MT, Ticketmaster)

About TicketScanner

TicketScanner is an independent ticket price comparison platform built to help fans find the cheapest tickets available online. We aggregate publicly available ticket listing data from multiple marketplaces and present it in a structured, easy-to-compare format.

TicketScanner does not sell tickets and does not process payments. Instead, we provide pricing insights and redirect users to third-party marketplaces where transactions are completed.