Oh yes, it's the end of an era for the Chicago Blackhawks. Not only will the 2025-26 season close out a century of success for the Hawks, even if recent seasons turned out a little differently, they're also saying bye-bye to the 82-game schedule.
With the Hawks 100th season coinciding with the current scheduling format's demise, they're gonna face a little more pressure going forward. Why's that? Well, one reason for the two-game expansion is to set the stage for teams to play a more balanced schedule for divisional opponents.
While this may be polarizing for some, I've been all for increasing the number of divisional matchups to (presumably) four per team each year as opposed to limiting themselves to three matchups for select divisional opponents a good thing.