An Outdoor Match on Ice in Florida and the Battle for the State Headline 2025-26 Tampa Bay Lightning Schedule

The 2025-26 season officially kicks off for the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, October 9  at 7:00PM at home in front of Bolts nation at Amalie Arena. It will be the first of 41 home matches in Tampa as they will play 50 percent of their 82-game season at home.

The season schedule, as announced by the Lightning on Wednesday, kicks off against the Ottawa Senators, followed by a Saturday matchup against the New Jersey Devils for the first Saturday game of the year.

The Lightning will face off against every team in the NHL at least twice and will take on their divisional foes at least four times, except the Senators and Maple Leafs, who they will take on three times.

The Lightning will head down south to Sunrise to face their in-state rival Florida Panthers for the first time in 2025 on Saturday, November 15th at 6:00PM at Amerant Bank Arena. They face them for the first time in Tampa on December 15th at 7:00PM at Amalie Arena. In total, the in-state teams will face each other four times (twice in Tampa, twice in Sunrise).

The headline match for the season takes place on February 1st when the Lightning play the Boston Bruins in the 2026 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series, which this season takes place at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. This will be the second time the Lightning have participated in the stadium series. They defeated the Nashville Predators 3-2 at Nissan Stadium in 2022. But this will be the first time the Lightning have hosted the stadium series in Tampa.

Again in 2026 there will be no All-Star break as members of various NHL teams will be competing in the 2026 Olympic Winter Games from February 6-22 in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.

The Lightning will have five players currently assigned to their country’s team for the 2026 Winter Olympics:

• Oliver Bjorkstrand (Team Denmark)

• Erik Cernak (Team Slovakia)

• Zemgus Girgensons (Team Latvia)

• Victor Hedman (Team Swedan)

• Brayden Point (Team Canda)

• Jon Cooper (Assistant Coach) and Julien BriseBois (General Manager) will also be on Team Canada’s staff.

The Lightning hope to start the year off strong and stay hot and make a run once again for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Lightning were eliminated early in 2025, but hope this will be the year they can make a deep run and return to the Stanley Cup finals. 

It all starts October 9 at 7:00PM at Amalie Arena.