The Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils will kick off the regular season on October 4 and 5 at Prague’s O2 arena

march 12, 2024
Thumbnail # The Buffalo Sabres and New Jersey Devils will kick off the regular season on October 4 and 5 at Prague’s O2 arena

The National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA), together with Live Nation, today announced that the 2024 NHL Global Series™ presented by Fastenal will be headlined by the Buffalo Sabres, New Jersey Devils, Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers.

On Friday, October 4 and Saturday, October 5, the Sabres and Devils will open the 2024-25 regular season with a pair of games at Prague’s O2 Arena. The games in Prague will be played on October 4 at 7:00 p.m. and October 5 at 4:00 p.m.

In advance of traveling to Prague, the Sabres will finish their training camp in Munich, Germany and will meet Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) club Red Bull Munich in an exhibition match Friday, Sept. 27. This will be the grand-opening event at Red Bull Munich’s brand-new home venue, SAP. The Stars and Panthers will then meet at Nokia Arena in Tampere, Finland Friday, Nov. 1 and Saturday, Nov. 2.

The 2024 NHL Global Series presented by Fastenal will mark the 11th season that the NHL has traveled to Europe to play regular-season games. These games reward the legions of loyal and passionate fans in Europe that enjoy live NHL games available via international broadcast and media partners, including MTV Oy and Viaplay (Finland), TV10 and Viaplay (Sweden), TV3 and Viaplay (Norway and Denmark), Nova and NovaSport (Czechia and Slovakia), Dajto (Slovakia), Sky and ProSieben (Germany), Sky (Austria) and MySports (Switzerland), as well as the NHL’s streaming service, NHL.TV. The NHL’s biggest star players are also featured across numerous social media platforms, and on NHL.com in seven languages, for the League’s international fans. Of the 42 previous NHL regular-season games played outside of North America, there have been seven games played in Czechia, all at O2 Arena in Prague. The two games in Tampere this season will mark the third and fourth games to be played at Nokia Arena in that city, and the 10th and 11th in Finland.

The 2024 NHL Global Series presented by Fastenal will be the first experience for the Stars playing regular-season games outside North America, becoming the 27th franchise to play in such games. The event will mark the second time the Devils have traveled overseas to play regular-season games and the third such trip for both the Sabres and Panthers. Results of regular-season games played outside of North America by New Jersey, Buffalo and Florida are listed below, as well as links to a complete history of NHL preseason games and regular-season games played outside North America.

The NHL is a global League, with more than 30 percent of NHL Players this season having been born outside of North America. There are multiple international stars on the rosters of all four Clubs participating in the 2024 NHL Global Series presented by Fastenal, including natives of the countries in which the games are being played. Sabres forward JJ Peterka will be returning to his birthplace when the Club visits Munich to face off against his former team. Peterka played 72 DEL games with Red Bull Munich during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, prior to making the transition to North America to join the Sabres. Then, in Prague, two Czech-born Devils forwards, Ondrej Palat and Tomas Nosek, will be returning to their native land, as will Sabres forward Lukas Rousek, who played 161 games over four seasons (2017-18 through 2020-21) with Prague-based Czech Extraliga club Sparta Praha.

In November, Tampere will welcome back a pair of native sons, in Panthers Captain Aleksander Barkov and Stars forward Roope Hintz. In addition to hailing from Tampere, both of those mainstays spent time with SM-liiga teams that call Nokia Arena home. Barkov was drafted second overall in 2013 by the Panthers from Tappara Tampere, and Hintz started his SM-liiga career with Ilves Tampere in 2013-14. Panthers defenseman Niko Mikkola also spent a season (2017-18) with Tappara Tampere, and two other teammates, forwards Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen, will also be returning to their home country. Additionally, there will be a homecoming for a trio of other Finnish-born Stars regulars, defensemen Jani Hakanpää, Miro Heiskanen and Esa Lindell.

More information on the 2024 NHL Global Series presented by Fastenal, including start times, ticketing and broadcast information, will be announced when available at www.livenation.cz , as well as on NHL.com/fi, NHL.com/cs and NHL.com/de, and international social media accounts @NHL_fi, @NHLcz and @NHLde,  which will serve as the official home for all of the latest news and information about the 2024 NHL Global Series presented by Fastenal, as well as other features from around the NHL. Media wishing to receive news releases and advisories relating to the 2024 NHL Global Series must register and subscribe at Media.NHL.com.