Your Week in NHL Hockey: October 12-15

GLENDALE, ARIZONA – APRIL 02: Oliver Ekman-Larsson #23, Brad Richards #12, Max Domi #16 and Zbynek Michalek #4 celebrate a third period goal by teammate Shane Doan #19 against the Washington Capitals at Gila River Arena on April 2, 2016 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Norm Hall/NHLI via Getty Images)

The NHL hockey season has finally arrived, and we’ll break down where you can find every single game for this first week in hockey.

Football has had a pretty strange season so far, and, to be completely honest, the season is relatively short. Baseball has moved into the postseason. This week sees the return of the ridiculously long NHL hockey season. (Seriously, last year’s playoffs ran from April to June, with the season kicking off in October. The NBA does similar, but does the NBA have the playoff beard tradition? No? Checkmate.

NBA fans, we’re teasing.)

Welcome to Your Week in NHL Hockey, in which we’ll give you the entire schedule every week, what channels, what times to tune in, and some best bets each day. Although yours truly does have a favorite team, fairness will hopefully be the name of the game. Depending on how the season goes, all teams have a chance to join the hallowed ranks of the best bet, must-watch tier.

Well, perhaps not all teams. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Technically, you could have been watching hockey already with the preseason. However, there is one operative word there: preseason. If you have missed the major offseason moves, the NHL has a trade tracker and the complete free agent tracker for you.

The season actually starts October 12, and we’ll give you the schedule through Saturday. All dates and times come from the NHL schedule.