{"id":764851,"date":"2026-07-15T18:50:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T18:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/764851\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T18:50:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T18:50:20","slug":"capitals-to-open-2026-27-season-against-lightning-host-penguins-in-home-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/764851\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitals to open 2026-27 season against Lightning, host Penguins in home opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Capitals<\/a> now know where they\u2019ll begin the 2026-27 NHL season.<\/p>\n

The NHL announced the date and opponent for all 32 teams\u2019 home openers on Wednesday morning, revealing that the Capitals will start their new campaign on the road against the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> on Saturday, October 3, at Benchmark International Arena. The matchup will serve as Tampa Bay\u2019s home opener and mark Washington\u2019s first regular-season game after an eventful offseason.<\/p>\n

Four days later, the Capitals will return to Capital One Arena for their own home opener, welcoming one of their biggest rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a>, on Wednesday, October 7.<\/p>\n

The Capitals and Penguins renewing their Metropolitan Division feud will likely feature the 101st-ever matchup between NHL legends Alex Ovechkin<\/a> and Sidney Crosby<\/a>, regular season and playoffs combined. The two longtime opponents faced off for the 100th time this past April<\/a>, when Ovechkin\u2019s NHL future was still up in the air. Now that he has signed on for another year, we will see at least four more battles between two of hockey\u2019s greats.<\/p>\n

Over the course of his career, Ovechkin has scored 21 total goals in 21 home openers with the Capitals. In 83 all-time regular-season games against the Penguins, he has scored 44 goals.<\/p>\n

Last season, the Capitals won their season series against the Penguins 2-1-0, sweeping a home-and-home, back-to-back set with Pittsburgh on April 11-12. October 7\u2019s matchup will be the second time in the last four seasons that the Capitals will host the Penguins in their home opener and the sixth time overall.<\/p>\n

The season opener down south in Florida will also mark John Carlson<\/a>\u2018s first-ever game against the Capitals after he was traded to the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> at last season\u2019s trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Carlson, 36, signed a two-year, $17 million contract with the Lightning in free agency<\/a>, and the 2026-27 season will be his first fully outside of Washington since he debuted during the 2009-10 campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say looking forward [to playing against Ovechkin], no,\u201d Carlson said earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 2026-27 NHL season will see an expanded 84-game schedule for each team, with the addition of two more divisional games per team. The season will open on Tuesday, September 29, with the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> hosting the Florida Panthers<\/a> for their banner-raising night at the Lenovo Center.<\/p>\n

The league\u2019s complete 2026-27 regular-season schedule will be announced on Thursday, July 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Washington Capitals now know where they\u2019ll begin the 2026-27 NHL season. The NHL announced the date and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-764851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}