The Blackhawks and Senators will head to Düsseldorf, Germany, to play a pair of regular-season contests on Dec. 18 and 20 as part of the 2026 Global Series, the NHL announced this morning.
They will mark only the second and third games the league has played in Germany, at least among regular-season contests. The Sabres and Kings headed to Berlin to open the 2011-12 campaign. That ended up being the last regular-season game outside North America for over six years, until the NHL launched the Global Series brand by sending the Avalanche and Sens to Sweden in November 2017.
This will be Ottawa’s third time participating in a Global Series event and their seventh and eighth European regular-season games overall, although it will be their first outside of Sweden. They had a back-to-back against the Penguins in Stockholm in 2008, again in Stockholm against Colorado in the aforementioned 2017 Global Series, and games against the Red Wings and Wild there in November 2023.
The Hawks’ history with European play is much sparser. They made it there to play a back-to-back with the Panthers in Helsinki to open the 2009-10 season, and didn’t return until 10 years later to play a one-off with the Flyers in Prague. This will only be their fourth and fifth European contests as a result.
Outside of North America, the Sens have been virtually unbeatable. They have a 5-0-1 record in those games, and their lone overtime loss came in their European debut (Tyler Kennedy had the winner for the eventual Cup champion Pens). The Blackhawks, meanwhile, are 1-1-1.
Of course, this won’t translate to a reduction in home games. Each club will still have 41 on its schedule next season, as the regular-season length jumps from 82 to 84 games under the new CBA extension.