Sport-Express’ Igor Eronko reported on Monday evening that the Washington Capitals have a week to come to an agreement to play a regular season NHL game in Russia next season. According to Eronko, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly has confirmed that the Global Series calendar already announced by the league can still have additions made to it.

Told that #ALLCAPS have around a week to settle a regular season game in Russia for next year. Bill Daly confirmed that the nex season's international games calendar the NHL announced still can have some additions

— Igor Eronko (@IgorEronko) November 25, 2019

Eronko’s report corroborates an article written and published early on Monday by the Washington Post’s Isabelle Khurshudyan and Samantha Pell. In that report, Capitals President Dick Patrick told Khurshudyan and Pell that the organization have “talked about different things overseas, and we’ve talked about some in Russia or some in Sweden.”

Paired with Eronko’s tweet, it would appear that a decision on the Capitals playing in Russia is much closer than originally expected. As for the Capitals’ potential opponent, Eronko added that the St. Louis Blues were in the conversation.

The Blues

— Igor Eronko (@IgorEronko) November 25, 2019

“My own belief is, if we’re going to play games in Russia — and we know there’s great interest in our game there — it would most likely be from our standpoint regular-season games with two NHL teams,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said of the potential of playing in Russia, when announcing next year’s Global Series.

For the 2020-21 season, the NHL has already announced that the Boston Bruins and Nashville Predators will open their season in the Czech Republic, and the Colorado Avalanche and Columbus Blue Jackets will play two regular season games in Finland. A potential Capitals game in Russia would be in addition to those already scheduled. It would also mark the first time that an NHL game will be played in Russia.

The Capitals boast four Russians on their current, regular roster, with captain Alex Ovechkin, forward Evgeny Kuznetsov, defenseman Dmitry Orlov, and back-up goaltender Ilya Samsonov. On the Blues, they have alternate captain Vladimir Tarasenko and forward Ivan Barbashev.

The NHL has played at least two regular season games abroad since 2017 as part of the Global Series. For the 2019-20 season, the Philadelphia Flyers and Chicago Blackhawks played their opening game in the Czech Republic, with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres heading to Sweden for back-to-back regular season games to showcase NHL hockey for an international audience. All three games were sellouts.

Headline photo: @aleksandrovechkinofficial