Everything you need to know ahead of the Lightning’s matchup against the Washington Capitals on Saturday:<\/p>\n
When: Saturday, October 3 – 7 p.m. ET Lines from Thursday’s game (subject to change) Defensemen Goaltenders Saturday’s Matchup Player Blue Carpet Walk, 3:45-4:30 pm<\/p>\n As is tradition, the Bolts will arrive to Saturday\u2019s home opener premiere-style, turning Ford Thunder Alley into a temporary episode of\u00a0Entourage. There will be star athletes, finely tailored suits and more than enough room to catch an up-close-and-personal glimpse at this year\u2019s team.<\/p>\n Tampa Bay Sports Item of the Game The Road Ahead
Where: Benchmark International Arena – Tampa, FL
TV coverage: The Spot – Tampa Bay 66 (check local listings); Pregame show begins at 6 p.m. ET
Radio coverage: 102.5 MHz-FM<\/a>, Lightning Radio 24\/7<\/a>
Stream: TampaBayLightning<\/a>.com\/StreamNow<\/a><\/p>\n
Forwards
Ilya Mikheyev -Brayden Point- Nikita Kucherov
Brandon Hagel – Anthony Cirelli\u00a0– Jake\u00a0Guentzel
Jeff Viel- Zemgus Girgensons – Pontus\u00a0Holmberg \u00a0
Conor Geekie\u00a0– Jansen Harkins – Gage\u00a0Goncalves<\/p>\n
JJ Moser – John Carlson
Ryan McDonagh – Erik Cernak
Victor Hedman – Charle-Eduord D’Astous<\/p>\n
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Dennis Hildeby<\/p>\n
The Tampa Bay Lightning make their return to Benchmark International Arena for the first home game of the 2026-27 season on Saturday versus the Washington Capitals…Tampa Bay is 52-78-16 against Washington all-time, a record that includes a 2-0-1 run last season…Brandon Hagel led the Bolts offensively versus the Capitals in 2025-26 with 3-3\u20146 in three games, while Jake Guentzel (2- 2\u20144) and Nikita Kucherov (1-3\u20144) each had four points…Martin St. Louis is the franchise\u2019s career scoring leader vs. WSH with 29-50\u201479 in 72 games, and Kucherov leads active Bolts with 15-19\u201434 in 34 games…Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy went 1-0-1 with a .931 save percentage against the Capitals last season, while Jonas Johansson went 1-0-0 with a .906 save percentage…Vasilevskiy holds a 12-11-2 career record against the Capitals with a .906 career save percentage..Goalie Dennis Hildeby is 0-1-0 with an .862 career save percentage against Washington.<\/p>\n
Ice Palace 30th Anniversary Puck and Tee
The Tampa Bay Lightning celebrate the 30th Anniversary of their home arena, the Ice Palace, and you can commemorate the celebration with a 30th Anniversary collectors puck and tee. \u00a0Available in store at Benchmark International Arena and online at TampaBaySports.com<\/a>, while supplies last.<\/p>\n
Monday, October 5 vs. Philadelphia Flyers
Thursday, October 8 vs. Minnesota Wild
Saturday, October 10 at New York Islanders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everything you need to know ahead of the Lightning’s matchup against the Washington Capitals on Saturday: When: Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-417348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}