The Rangers’ 2025-26 schedule will include another outdoor game, with the Blueshirts set to face the Panthers in the Winter Classic at loanDepot Park in Miami on Jan. 2, 2026, the league announced Wednesday.
It’ll mark their sixth appearance in an outdoor game, with the most recent one occurring last year when the Rangers faced the Islanders at MetLife Stadium in the NHL’s Stadium Series and escaped with a thrilling 6-5 overtime win.
The Blueshirts are 5-0 in their history of outdoor games.
This one, though, will be different, with Florida hosting the two southernmost outdoor games in league history, according to the Panthers.
The Lighting will host the Bruins on Feb. 1, 2026, in another outdoor game next season.
It won’t be the NHL’s first attempt at hosting an outdoor game in warmer weather as Dodger Stadium hosted an outdoor game in 2014 that, at the time, set the record for warmest temperature for a regular-season outdoor game at 62 degrees.
Two years later, the Avalanche’s Stadium Series clash against the Red Wings at Coors Field in Denver started in 65-degree weather to break the previous mark.
“Stanley Cups, strings of sellouts and the exponential growth of youth and high school hockey throughout the state have demonstrated that Florida is a hockey hotbed,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. “Outdoor NHL games in the Sunshine State? Never let it be said that our League isn’t willing to accept a challenge.”
The Rangers made their outdoor debut in January 2012 with a 3-2 Winter Classic win against the Flyers at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
They faced the Devils at Yankee Stadium in the Stadium Series two years later, defeating their New Jersey rivals in a convincing 7-3 victory. Days later, they topped the Islanders at the same venue, 2-1.
In a trip to Citi Field for the 2018 Winter Classic, the Blueshirts defeated the Sabres in overtime, 3-2.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
