NHL teams begin a sprint to the regular season with shorter training camps

Players around the NHL step on the ice Thursday, right around the same time of year training camps usually open up. Only this time, opening night is less than two weeks away.

“It's quick,” Philadelphia's Jamie Drysdale said. “It’s going to be really fast.”

This is the new normal with the expanded regular-season schedule making for shorter camps and fewer exhibition games. Each team will play 84 times once the pucks drop for real, but the ramp-up to the league's earliest start has even seasoned veterans unsure how it is going to go.

“Until we go through it, it’s hard to say,” said Pittsburgh captain and three-time Stanley Cup champion Sidney Crosby, who's going into his 22nd NHL season. “I don’t know how it’ll be."

Most established players are in favor of the change, negotiated by the union and owners as part of the labor agreement that is now in effect. Nearly every team has just four preseason games, and anyone who has played more than 100 regular-season career games cannot take part in more than two.

“I like it even better, probably,” Boston winger David Pastrnak said. “I’m maybe speaking (from) more of a veteran position, so it’s definitely better for us. ... With more games, it makes sense to cut it down a little bit.”

Cut out entirely are mandatory fitness tests that have haunted players for decades. They think the whole concept is antiquated, given that August informal skates have become customary and camp isn't used for getting into shape anymore.

“If you’re not coming into camp ready to go, in good shape, ready to dominate those tests, then really what are you doing?” Chicago's Frank Nazar said. “You’re responsible for your own summer and for your own body, and if you’re not coming ready to go, then someone’s going to take your spot and for a good reason. I think it just cuts that babysitting aspect of it out and you’re able to just take responsibility for your actions.”

It may be slightly worse for the five teams — Vegas, Los Angeles, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver — with a brand-new coach. Others, such as Columbus and the New York Islanders, made mid- or late-season moves behind the bench.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” Golden Knights center Jack Eichel said. “You have a team like ours that played until the middle of June and had a shorter offseason, so it might not be a bad thing. At the same time, we have a veteran team and sometimes you utilize training camp as a few extra weeks to prepare for the season.”

Most 23-player rosters are pretty much set, but there are a handful of spots around the league up for grabs annually. Young players looking to crack the NHL unexpectedly and those on professional tryout agreements have a shorter runway to impress management and coaching staffs.

“How we adapted was a smaller camp, and we’re getting to our NHL group quicker,” Islanders coach Peter DeBoer said. “Unfortunately, the flip side of that is some prospects that in the past might have played some games and you got the chance to look at maybe don’t get that opportunity.”

Three-time Vezina Trophy-winning goaltender Connor Hellebuyck in Winnipeg and Detroit center — and now former captain — Dylan Larkin each asked for trades during the offseason. Unlike Brady Tkachuk, who got dealt from Ottawa to Florida to play with brother Matthew, Hellebuyck and Larkin are still with the teams they want to leave.

Larkin said he’ll be there for the Red Wings, though interim general manager Shawn Horcoff said Wednesday the 30-year-old center would not be ready for the start of camp because of an upper-body injury.

Hellebuyck went public with his trade request a few weeks ago, and the Jets said they were working through the situation. No player with a contract has refused to report to camp this century, going back to Alexei Yashin's 1999 holdout.

“He’s obviously a very good friend of mine that I’ve played with for a long time,” center Mark Scheifele said. “I just want to be there as a friend but also at the same time focus on myself and what I can do for the Winnipeg Jets.”

After Anaheim signed Cutter Gauthier on Tuesday night, there were just four restricted free agents left without a contract on the eve of camp: Columbus' Adam Fantilli, Carolina's Alexander Nikishin, Detroit's Simon Edvinsson and Calgary's Brennan Othmann.

Last season's NHL MVP, Nikita Kucherov, does not yet have an extension with Tampa Bay and could hit the market July 1 if one is not hammered out by then. Colorado coach Jared Bednar is also going into the final year of his contract, four years since guiding the Avalanche to the Stanley Cup.

See AP’s full NHL coverage here

FILE - New York Islanders new head coach Peter DeBoer speaks after an NHL hockey game against the Carolina Hurricanes, April 14, 2026, in Elmont, N.Y. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)

In this photo taken with a smartphono, Chicago Blackhawks players, from left, Patrick Kane, Connor Bedard and Tyler Bertuzzi pose during a news conference introducing Bedard as the new captain of the NHL hockey club, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Jay Cohen)

FILE - Detroit Red Wings center Dylan Larkin celebrates his goal against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first period of an NHL hockey game in Detroit, April 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

FILE - St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas reacts after scoring an empty-net goal during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Minnesota Wild, March 1, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fencing went up Wednesday around the main Kennedy Center building, a day after the Trump-aligned board voted to close most of the performing arts center for repairs. A Democratic congresswoman who is a trustee quickly sought an emergency court hearing to prevent what she called the “unlawful closing.”

The board's vote on Tuesday came after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning President Donald Trump’s name to the building.

The Republican president had said in a social media post that the closure was needed for safety repairs. But he said the repairs, which Congress has allocated $257 million to cover, would only happen if the board was permitted to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.

Activists who have opposed the closure said there has been no vehicle or pedestrian access to the building Wednesday. An Associated Press reporter who approached the main building was told by a security guard that it was closed.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, an Ohio Democrat and an ex-officio member of the Kennedy Center board, requested an emergency court hearing Wednesday regarding what she called Trump’s “unlawful closure of the Kennedy Center.” Beatty has led efforts to block Trump’s name from being added to the building, and had a verbal confrontation with Trump Tuesday during a virtual board meeting.

Trump, who was named the Kennedy Center’s chairman last year by loyalists on the board, said on social media Tuesday that he’d given $17 million to an endowment intended to support the institution.

A staff member for a legal team representing Beatty was denied entrance to the building on Wednesday, Beatty’s lawyers said in a court filing. The staffer “was informed by several security staff members that the building is currently closed to the public,” the filing said.

“Given the unexplained and unlawful closure, it is possible Defendants intend to undertake immediate steps in order to make public access practically impossible for the foreseeable future, including by demolishing public avenues of access to the building, and thereby evade the court’s order,″ the filing said.

Laura Bligh, who has attended protests with the advocacy group “Hands Off the Arts,” said she feared some or all of the building may be torn down before the legal case is concluded.

"The worst case scenario is a wrecking ball,” she said, adding that the Trump administration can’t be trusted because “look what they did to the East Wing.”

The administration demolished the East Wing of the White House and is replacing it with a massive ballroom. Trump also plans to build a triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery and is eyeing a golf course renovation along the Potomac River.

The Kennedy Center board voted in August to inscribe his name on the Kennedy Center’s facade so it would read “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated By President Donald J. Trump.” If the Trump Kennedy Center Fund reached $100 million, another inscription would be added reading “Endowed by the Trump Kennedy Center Fund.”

The plaza in front of the Kennedy Center would also be renamed in Trump’s honor.

All of those proposals were shot down Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who ruled that nothing could happen “without Congress's blessing.”

Cooper ruled in May that the Kennedy Center illegally added Trump’s name to the building, ordering it removed. The institution’s leaders complied in June but left a tarp and scaffolding in place where Trump’s name was once displayed.

Roma Daravi, a spokesperson for the Kennedy Center, did not respond to requests for comment. But she wrote on social media that the building must be closed for safety reasons. A chunk of ceiling fell inside a main hallway of the 55-year-old building earlier this month. The partial collapse intensified calls for renovations.

“Compounding systemic infrastructure failures from decades of neglect have left a crumbling building and safety concerns require an immediate closure of @TKCOfficial main building,'' she wrote Wednesday on X. ”Chairman @realDonaldTrump continues to support this great American institution while legal battles halt the progress to save it."

Maria Shriver, John F. Kennedy's niece and former first lady of California, called the standoff over the name “a sad state of affairs” and a “tragedy.”

She said in a post on X that it appears Trump “will not rest until his name is permanently connected to the name of a great president, whose memory this building was dedicated to.”

“Imagine spending your days focused on this, while a war rages under your leadership,” she added.

Fencing is placed outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Ellgren)

Barriers are placed outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Ellgren)

Fencing is placed outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Ellgren)

Fencing is placed outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Ellgren)

Barriers are placed outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Nathan Ellgren)