The Washington Capitals now know where they’ll begin the 2026-27 NHL season.
The NHL announced the date and opponent for all 32 teams’ home openers on Wednesday morning, revealing that the Capitals will play the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, October 3, at Benchmark International Arena. The game will come a day after the Caps kick off their season with a matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday, October 2, at the Lenovo Center.
Four days after playing the Lightning, the Capitals will return to Capital One Arena for their own home opener, welcoming one of their biggest rivals, the Pittsburgh Penguins, on Wednesday, October 7.
The Capitals and Penguins renewing their Metropolitan Division feud will likely feature the 101st-ever matchup between NHL legends Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, regular season and playoffs combined. The two longtime opponents faced off for the 100th time this past April, when Ovechkin’s 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’s greats.
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.
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’s 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.
The second game of the season down south in Florida will also mark John Carlson‘s first-ever game against the Capitals after he was traded to the Anaheim Ducks at last season’s trade deadline.
Carlson, 36, signed a two-year, $17 million contract with the Lightning in free agency, and the 2026-27 season will be his first fully outside of Washington since he debuted during the 2009-10 campaign.
“I wouldn’t say looking forward [to playing against Ovechkin], no,” Carlson said earlier this month.
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 hosting the Florida Panthers for their banner-raising night at the Lenovo Center.
The league’s complete 2026-27 regular-season schedule will be announced on Thursday, July 16.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Capitals would begin their season against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday, October 3. After the NHL unveiled the full regular-season schedule on Thursday, it was revealed that the Caps will actually play their first game of the 2026-27 campaign against the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday, October 2. We regret the error.
