The Utah Hockey Club will play its first regular-season game Oct. 8 against Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks, marking the debut of the NHL in Salt Lake City following the team's move from Arizona.
That same night, the Florida Panthers will raise their first Stanley Cup banner to the rafters in Sunrise, Florida, before facing off against the Boston Bruins.
The NHL released the list of home openers for each of its 32 teams Monday with the full 1,312-game regular-season schedule expected this week.
Utah, which is expected to have a permanent name in time for the 2025-26 season, will play at the Delta Center, home of the NBA's Utah Jazz, an arena that will undergo renovations to provide more unobstructed views for NHL games. The capacity is 16,200 for the inaugural season, with not all directly facing the ice, but the demand has been high with 30,000 season-ticket deposits.
“We are thrilled to play the first regular season game in franchise history, at home, in front of our amazing fans,” president of hockey operations Chris Armstrong said. “The eyes of the hockey world will be on Utah when we host the Blackhawks on that historic night, and we look forward to rising to the occasion.”
The second day of the season is rivalry night with the New York Rangers visiting Pittsburgh; Toronto at Montreal; and Colorado at Vegas. Avalanche-Golden Knights is a matchup of the 2022 and '23 Cup champions.
In the middle of a free agent frenzy that saw teams around the league commit nearly $1 billion in contracts, some teams in the Eastern Conference made trades to fill important holes.
The Rangers acquired winger Reilly Smith from the Penguins for a 2027 second-round pick and a conditional fifth-rounder in ‘25. Pittsburgh retained 25% of Smith’s salary, meaning New York gets him at $3.75 million for next season. Smith has now been traded twice in just over a year since helping Vegas win the Cup.
Washington followed through on general manager Brian MacLellan's plan to change the mix on defense by acquiring Jakob Chychrun from Ottawa for Nick Jensen and a 2026 third-round pick.
“Jakob is a 26-year-old offensive defenseman who has nearly 500 games of NHL experience,” MacLellan said. “His unique skill set and experience will undoubtedly bolster our blue line, substantially increasing our offensive capabilities."
The Nashville Predators, who committed more than $110 million to sign free agents Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, Brady Skjei and Scott Wedgewood, paid another big price to keep their franchise goaltender around for the long term.
The team agreed to terms Monday with Juuse Saros on an eight-year extension worth $61.92 million — an annual cap hit of $7.74 million, a nod to his jersey No. 74 and his status as one of the best at the position.
“We’ve long envisioned Juuse spending his NHL career with the Predators, and this is the next step in that process,” GM Barry Trotz said. "His competitiveness and work ethic will help him build even further on the success he’s already enjoyed as our starting goaltender.”
Toronto also extended its goalie of the present and future, signing Joseph Woll to a three-year, $11 million contract that runs through 2028. Woll is expected to share the net with Anthony Stolarz, who backed up Sergei Bobrovsky on Florida's Cup run after a career-best regular season with a 2.03 goals-against average and .925 save percentage.
Philadelphia signed gritty winger Garnet Hathaway to a $4.8 million extension through 2026-27. Hathaway, who will count $2.4 million against the cap during that contract, has been a good fit since signing with the Flyers in free agency a year ago.
"Garnet has been a great addition to our team and we’re very happy to extend him ... for the next several seasons,” general manager Danny Briere said. “His style of play and level of professionalism had a big effect on our group last season, and he embodies the standard our team set out to build both on and off the ice.”
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Florida Panthers' Matthew Tkachuk, left, and Kyle Okposo, right, celebrate with the Stanley Cup during an NHL hockey parade and rally, Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers to win the championship series. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Cole Beaudoin, center bottom, heads to the podium after being selected by the Utah Hockey Club during the first round of the NHL hockey draft Friday, June 28, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Steve Marcus)
Violence and mass shootings often surge in the summer months, especially around the Fourth of July, historically one of the deadliest days of the year.
A flurry of shootings around the holiday a year ago left more than a dozen people dead and over 60 wounded. Just two years ago, another mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade left seven people dead near Chicago. The mother of a 10-year-old boy left paralyzed by the attack said Wednesday that her family won’t go to this year's parade, which is returning for the first time since the shooting.
"I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to attend the parade again,” said Keely Roberts, who also was wounded.
The Gun Violence Archive, which tracks mass shootings involving four or more people regardless of whether they died, shows June, July, and August have had the highest total number of mass shootings over the past decade. The lowest totals were from December through March.
Independence Day topped the list with 58 mass shootings over the last 10 years — closely followed by July 5, according to the archive.
“It’s the gathering, the free time, the drinking,” said James Alan Fox, a criminologist and professor at Northeastern University, who oversees a mass killings database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with the university.
In the first half of this year, there were 19 mass killings — 14 of them shootings — with at least four dead in the U.S., according to the database. In 2023, the nation recorded the highest number of mass shootings — 39 — since the tracking began.
Researchers point to a combination of factors that historically have caused the summer months to see an increase in violence and shootings.
Mass killings are far more likely to happen at a home and most often the victims are related to the shooter or are a close acquaintance.
When school is out, families are spending more time together, children are often home all day and there's a greater likelihood of more victims when everyone is under one roof, said Jesenia Pizarro, a criminology professor at Arizona State University.
Teenagers also have more idle time on their hands. “It's like the opportunity shifts in the summer,” she said.
After two mass shootings hours apart in Dayton, Ohio, left a total of three people dead and eight injured in late June, police said one of the shootings took place at a vacant house where hundreds of teens and young adults had gathered.
“It could have been a lot worse," said Eric Henderson, the city’s assistant chief, who pointed out it was the third big party since mid-June where trouble erupted after young people took over a vacant house.
Family reunions, block parties and festivals in the summertime all bring more people together — and create more opportunities for trouble, more so when there's drinking involved.
“It doesn’t mean that those kinds of things aren’t around in March or in January. They’re just around at a lower extent than they are in the summertime,” said University of Miami criminologist Alex Piquero. “We do know that just about every summer there’s an uptick in violence. So I fully anticipate that happening this summer. I fully anticipate it happening next summer and the summer after that.”
The likelihood of being a victim of a mass shooting is still extremely low, but it does mean there's the potential for more victims if something happens at a crowded event.
During the first weekend of this summer, there were several shootings where multiple people were killed or wounded at large gatherings, including in Montgomery, Alabama, where gunfire erupted during an unsanctioned street party with more than 1,000 people. Police said nine people were shot and that investigators found more than 350 spent shell casings.
Several studies have linked warm weather and hotter than normal temperatures with rising tempers — and not just in the summer. They also link the increased temps with more violent crimes, although other factors often come into play.
Former New York City police officer Jillian Snider, now a lecturer at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said she saw this firsthand in neighborhoods where a lack of air conditioning pushed people out onto their stoops or into parks on sweltering days.
“It makes people a little angry because there’s nowhere to cool down and tensions rise,” she said. “You have no escape from that, you're just more upset.”
Associated Press journalists Sharon Johnson in Atlanta and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed.
FILE - Bullet casings litter the ground behind a press conference on July 5, 2023, in Shreveport, La. At least three people were killed and 10 others wounded in the shooting. Violence and mass shootings often surge in the summer months, especially around the Fourth of July, historically one of the deadliest days each year. (Henrietta Wildsmith/The Shreveport Times via AP, File)
FILE - A woman wipes away tears after a mass shooting at an Independence Day parade that left seven people dead and dozens wounded, in the Chicago suburb Highland Park, July 4, 2022. Violence and mass shootings often surge in the summer months, especially around the Fourth of July, historically one of the deadliest days each year. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)
