NHL announces late-night puck drop for Avalanche’s season opener

The NHL schedule release is just around the corner, and Colorado Avalanche fans received some early news on Monday morning regarding the start of their team’s 2025-26 campaign.

LET THE COUNTDOWN BEGIN‼️ pic.twitter.com/Oudfy9sj91

— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) July 14, 2025

For the third consecutive season, the Avalanche are heading west to start the season on the road. They opened the season at Los Angeles in 2023, at Vegas in 2024 and will be back in Los Angeles to kick off the 2025 season. Puck drop is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. MDT on Oct. 7, but since the game is the third leg of a national TV triple header, it likely won’t start closer to 9:00 p.m. for fans watching in the Mile High City.

#NHL 2025-26 Opening Night Tripleheader:

Tues. Oct. 7
5pm ET: #Blackhawks at #FlaPanthers
8pm ET: #LetsGoPens at #NYR
10:30pm ET: #GoAvsGo at #LAKings

Full schedule release on Wed. July 16 at 1pm ET.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) July 14, 2025

The Avalanche won the season series against the Kings 2-1 last year with the home team winning all three contests. In the history of this matchup, Colorado has a slight edge with an 80-79-8-4 record, but have dominated the matchup since the turn of the decade with a 16-6-1 record.

This will be the first true look at an Avalanche squad that has been totally revamped since opening night last year. While the team had two months to try and gel after general manager Chris MacFarland made a flurry of moves at the trade deadline last season, they never had the chance to build the chemistry of a Stanley Cup-winning team, and the return of Gabriel Landeskog in the playoffs only threw another wrench into the equation.

While there are still some holes left on the roster, mainly wingers in the bottom six, the Avs still have a bit of cap space to work with to fill those needs before training camp gets underway. However, it’s no secret that the window to make it back to the mountaintop continues to dwindle, especially given that Nathan MacKinnon is heading  into his 13th season with the burgundy and blue and that no one knows exactly how Landeskog’s body will hold up over the course of a season, so whatever tricks that MacFarland has left up his sleeve need to be good ones.

The Kings added a lot of talent to their roster this offseason with Corey Perry, Cody Ceci and others, and are poised to have a squad that can make it out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time since the franchise won the Stanley Cup in 2014. This will be no easy task for Colorado to start the season, especially on the road.

The rest of Colorado’s schedule will be released on Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. MDT. Even though it feels like hockey season just ended, the next chapter is right around the corner.

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