RALEIGH — It’s another big night for the reigning Stanley Cup champions.

The Carolina Hurricanes welcome the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer to Lenovo Center on Friday night as the team debuts its new television network with a game on WRAL (7 p.m., 99.9 FM).

Friday’s game will be
the first of be the
first of 10 home games broadcasted live on WRAL and FOX 50. 

See the full schedule of Canes games you can watch from the comfort of home.

Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals open their season in Raleigh against the Hurricanes, who hung their championship banner before their opener Tuesday night. 

Ovechkin has 929 career regular-season goals, the most in league history. At 41, he’s back for his 22nd season with Washington. He scored 32 goals in 82 games last year.

“You always talk about players: What do you do?” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “That guy scores. It might not be 50 [goals]. It might. His drop off might be 30 or 35. He’s the best goal scorer of all time for a reason and he might be still that at 50 [years old]. Being able to score goals, I think, that’s something he certainly doesn’t lose a knack.”

The Hurricanes earned a point in Tuesday’s 1-0 overtime loss to Florida. But the team wasn’t anywhere near its best on a celebratory night that started with a Stanley Cup victory lap and the banner ceremony.

“A little bit more emotional than probably regular games and played one of the better teams in the league,” forward Sebastian Aho said. “I love it. It was a hard-fought game. We’re definitely right back at it.”

Washington is expected to be the Hurricanes’ top challenger in the NHL’s Metropolitan Division. The Capitals added several key pieces in the offseason, forwards Alex Tuch, Jordan Kyrou and Boone Jenner and defenseman Vincent Desharnais. Tuch signed an eight-year, $84-million contract with Washington, which has long been known for its size and physicality.

“The bigger talking point with them is they’ve added some real talent there,” Brind’Amour said. “That’s pretty obvious.”

Friday’s game will be the first of 10 home games broadcast this season over-the-air on WRAL or FOX 50 in the Triangle area. It will also be the first on the Hurricanes Hockey Network, which will produce the games with help from the NHL. The network is available on Prime Video, Fubo, Spectrum and other distributors. Play-by-play announcer Mike Maniscalco and analyst Tripp Tracy are on the call.

The Hurricanes are one of several teams in the league now handling production of their own game broadcasts with assistance from the NHL due to the decline of regional sports networks around the country.

“My guess is the handful will turn into multi-handfuls over time,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said this week in Raleigh. “What’s really going on is as the regional sports environment is changing, we first and foremost want to make sure that fans have access to all of our games. The business model is going to evolve over time. … Teams needed to be in a position to have their games produced, and we felt they could use a little assistance in having an infrastructure to do that, and it’s our goal to provide that resource to clubs that need it.”

He added: “We think we can upgrade the production and give it a good look and make it responsive to what the fans want to see. Be gentle in judging us. They’re starting up but I would say over the next few weeks, you’re going to like what you see.”