Introducing the 2025-26 regular-season schedule.
It’s one of my favorite days/times of the year personally. Sure, I get a slight look at things in advance but taking a look into the homestands, the roadtrips, the holidays, the weekends, the matchups and everything in between…..it’s just something fun for me to do and hopefully for some of you as well.
In terms of formatting, there are no changes to what we’ve seen here in years past.
The Kings will play 82 games, 41 at home and 41 on the road. Next season, a new schedule will be introduced but for now, it’s the same 82 games we’ve seen in past years. Against teams from the Eastern Conference, the Kings will play one game at home and one game on the road, accounting for 32 games in total, 16 against each division. With the Central Division, it’s one game at home and two on the road against four teams and two games at home and one on the road versus the other four teams, accounting for a total of 24 games. The Pacific Division sees the Kings play the most games but the format is the least consistent. Against five of the seven teams the Kings will face, it’s two games at home and two on the road. For the other two teams, the format is similar to the Central Division. The Kings will visit Edmonton just once, hosting the Oilers twice. The other side of the coin sees the Sharks visit the Kings only one time, while the two teams will meet twice in San Jose. The Pacific Division accounts for the final 26 games on the schedule.
The Kings will likely be the NHL’s first team to play twice, as they play on the first and second days of the season. The Kings host Colorado on October 7 and will fly after the game to Vegas, where they will take on the Golden Knights the next day on the road. The Vegas tilt is one of just two Pacific Division games on the schedule in October, as the Kings will once again play the bulk of their games within the division in the second-half of the season.
In terms of divisional games, two cool quirks of the schedule this year. First is a home/away back-to-back against the Ducks in January. The two teams will play on Friday, January 16 at Crypto.com Arena before turning around the next night to play at Honda Center on Saturday. Additionally, the Kings will both go into the Olympic break and exit it against the Vegas Golden Knights in a pair of games that are 20 days apart, despite being next to each other on the schedule. The Kings visit Vegas on February 5 before Olympians depart and they return to action at home against Vegas on February 25.
The only trip to Edmonton during the regular season is also in January on the tenth, with the Kings hosting the Oilers on February 26 and April 11 in Los Angeles. The Kings will spend Black Friday in Anaheim and host Vancouver at home the next night, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The Kings will go into the holiday break within the division, hosting Seattle on December 27, and also come out of the break in the division, against the Ducks in Anaheim.
In terms of the Central Division, the Kings will play twice each in Dallas, St. Louis, Utah and Winnipeg, hosting those four teams once. In turn, they’ll host Chicago, Colorado, Minnesota and Nashville twice, visiting each city once. Much of the Central Division slate falls early in the season, with the game at Utah on March 22 being the only road game versus a Central Division club from February through April.
Looking at the Eastern Conference, the defending Stanley Cup Champions return to Los Angeles on November 6, concluding an early-season homestand. Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov returns to Los Angeles with the New York Rangers on Tuesday, January 20. The Kings will welcome back forward Tanner Jeannot and the Boston Bruins on November 21 while defenseman Jordan Spence when the Ottawa Senators come to town three days later on Monday, November 24.
By Day Of The Week
– The Kings will, once again, play a Saturday-heavy home schedule. The Kings will play 13 games on Saturdays at Crypto.com Arena, the most of any day of the week. The team will also play eight times on the road on a Saturday, making 25 percent of the schedule this season on Saturdays specifically. It’s not new. The Kings don’t play at home very often on Fridays or Sundays and they do play a ton of Saturday. Nothing different here this season. The schedule also shows a lot more consistency with start times as of today, with 7 PM seemingly the preferred time on Saturday evenings.
– The second most regular day of the week is Thursday, as the Kings will play ten times on home ice on Thursdays. Thursday/Saturday combinations have felt like a pretty regular thing with the Kings, with nine of those ten games coming as a part of a Thursday/Saturday split on home ice. Those two days alone make up more than 50 percent of the team’s home schedule.
– If you’re looking for something to do on a Sunday, look elsewhere. The Kings will not play a single home game on a Sunday and have just four Sunday games in total. For NFL fans, there should only be two conflicts during the regular season and one during the playoffs on February 1, when the Kings visit Carolina. If, you know, you’re into that sort of thing.
– The rest of the schedule is more valances. Six home games on Monday and five apiece on Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursdays high, Saturdays high, Sundays low, rest of the world dispersed pretty evenly.
By Month
– The Kings will have a frontloaded schedule on the road, beginning with eight of 11 games coming away from Los Angeles. The Kings will also play more games on the road than at home in November (6H, 7A), followed by a near-even split in December and January. It’s not quite as drastic as it was last season, when it felt like the entire travel schedule was complete by the end of January. But it’s a road-heavy start that will slowly be made up as the season goes along.
– the trade off to that is a very home-heavy finish to the season. Beginning at the end of March, the Kings have a seven-game homestand that carries into the final three road games of the season. From the end of the Olympic break on, the Kings will play 15 of their final 25 games on home ice, which is not a bad way to head into what they hope will be another postseason appearance.
– The busiest month of the season is certainly January. The Kings play 16 games in 31 days, 17 in 32 if you also account for February 1. You don’t need me to tell you that January has been the team’s worst month in terms of performance over the last two seasons. Certainly wouldn’t say this helps change that. The Kings will have ample opportunities to play but will certainly be short on rest and practice time during that month. From the end of the holiday break through the Olympic break, it’ll be pedal to the medal, specifically in the month of January.
– While it’s light in terms of total games, April will also be very crowded. The Kings have nine games in 16 days to close out the season. The months of November, December and March each have the Kings playing 13 games, so outside of January and to an extent April, it’s a pretty balanced schedule in terms of a month-by-month basis.
Odds & Ends
– Last season saw the Kings begin on the East Coast after playing two preseason games in Quebec City. This season, they’ll start at home as a part of the NHL’s Opening Night tripleheader on October 7. Last season, renovations at Crypto.com Arena pushed the Kings out of the building for the entire preseason and the home opener was not until October 24. It’ll be much earlier this year and the Kings will play one home preseason game, which makes for a slightly friendlier start to the season.
– The break! The Kings are in Vegas on Thursday, February 5. They return to action on Wednesday, February 25. That’s………long. The break referenced is for the 2026 Winter Olympics, when several Kings players will be likely to compete for their respective countries. Expecting to see Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala for sure, with Drew Doughty having a strong case and players like Darcy Kuemper, Quinton Byfield and Samuel Helenius likely to be in the mix as well, along with players like Martin Chromiak who are within the system. The break marks the first time that NHL players have competed in the Olympics since 2014. A nice break for most and a very jam-packed February for others.
– As a result of the long break, games will be more compact than we’ve seen in seasons past. The Kings will have 16 back-to-backs this season, which is one more than last season and the most they’ve had since the 2021-22 season, when there was also a break for the Olympics, though the league did not allow players to compete due to COVID. The back-to-backs are a tradeoff for the break, certainly.
– Of those back-to-back games, the season begins with a home/away set, which is the first of four this season of that variety. The Kings will also play two away/home back-to-backs, three home/home back-to-backs and seven away/away back-to-backs, with the latter being the most common variety. The Kings were actually one of the NHL’s best teams this season on the second half of back-to-backs, ranking fifth in the NHL at 1.357 points-per-game, trailing only Dallas, Colorado, Vegas and Toronto.
– Looking at homestands, the Kings have two of six-or-more games this season, with both coming late in the season. Starting after the break, the Kings will play six straight games in Los Angeles from February 25 through March 7. Then, the team will have a seven-game homestand from March 28 through April 9. The team has three homestands of four games each in the first half of the season but nothing longer than that.
– In terms of roadtrips, the Kings will have two this season of six games in total, their longest of the season. The first falls in November, when they will play six consecutive games on the road from November 9 through November 20. The second begins on January 24 and runs through February 1. Interestingly enough, there’s only one, one-off trip this season and it’s to Colorado after the Christmas break. The Kings visit Colorado on December 29, which is the only standalone trip this season if you exclude the back-to-backs that also include a home game.
– If you want holiday action, the Kings will play the two days after Thanksgiving (11/28 @ ANA, 11/29 vs. VAN). They’ll also play on December 23 versus Columbus and December 27 versus Anaheim. The Kings will host St. Louis on April Fools Day, for those who celebrate. It’ll be a rare Valentine’s Day off for all you lovers out there. Nice to see.
And that’s that! 2,000 words about a schedule. Full calendar is obviously embedded towards the top here and for a PDF, CLICK HERE to download. Excited to add these all to the calendar, as a sign that while we are far away, there’s now an end date in sight and a schedule to look forward to working along the way.
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