October 7, 2025 will be opening night for the New York Rangers as they start their 100th season of being a professional ice hockey club. Predictions may be high for the Blueshirts this upcoming season for that reason, and on opening night they are facing off against Eastern Conference foes Pittsburgh at 8 pm Eastern, which will be televised nationally on ESPN.
The Rangers and Penguins have had considerable amounts of business dealings over the last couple of months, from trading players to the most recent business of snagging Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan from them. In addition, the Rangers also appointed new assistant head coaches in former Pittsburgh assistant head coach David Quinn, as well as Ty Hennes, who also comes from Pittsburgh. Their last hire is Joe Sacco, who spent 11 years with the Boston Bruins as their assistant. Evidently, it would seem the Rangers were pretty adept this offseason when it came to creating an entirely new coaching stuff. Now, if they could just figure out the remaining situation with President and GM Chris Drury. He may still be on the hot seat well after the deal with Anaheim that shipped Chris Kreider out of Manhattan.
The Penguins aren't the only team the Rangers will duel with early on in the season, too. One of their first preseason games is against their eternal crosstown rivals, the New Jersey Devils, scheduled on September 21st in Newark. But oddly enough after that, we won't see another edition of the Hudson River Rivalry til March 7, when there will be just over a month left in the regular season. That game is scheduled for a Saturday afternoon at 3 pm Eastern.
The Rangers' season opener is quickly followed by a two game road trip up the Northeast, first to Buffalo to face the Sabres on October 9 at 7 pm and then over to Pittsburgh for a quick season opener rematch, scheduled for 7 pm. After that, it's a two game homestand against Alex Ovechkin and Washington on the 12th at 7 pm, followed by Connor McDavid and the Oilers on the 14th at 7 pm, two very tough matchups Rangers fans are probably glad are at home.
The Rangers will then cross the northern border to face Toronto on October 16th at 7 pm then a short plane hop over to Montreal on the 18th at 7 pm. Two more home games on the 20th and 23rd against the Minnesota Wild and San Jose Sharks are followed by 3 road games throughout Western Canada to close out the first month of the season. Definitely a busy first month for the Blueshirts!
The Rangers don't quite get any big holiday games, and as a matter of fact, they'll be in the middle of separate road trips when Thanksgiving on November 27 and Christmas come around. Of course, no teams play on the latter, but maybe the league should make some kind of effort to schedule games around then, like they do for Thanksgiving.
The 100th overall season for the New York Rangers should be a very interesting one, seeing as how also this offseason, some particular contract negotiations were not discussed. That means for players like Artemi Panarin, the Breadman could be on his way out of Manhattan, as his contract is expiring after this upcoming season. The Rangers may be much busier in the 2026 offseason than they even were this year.