Previewing what will be the opening month of the NHL regular season
We’re less than 85 days until the NHL regular season opens back up. As usual, we start this feature of breaking the Penguins’ season into months by looking at October. Autumn will be in the air and the skates will be cutting through the ice once again. The Pens finish up their preseason schedule by October 3rd after playing their last one with a home tune-up game against the Sabres.
Month: October
Number of games: 12
First Game: October 7th
Home-Road: 5-7
Conference Breakdown: 6 vs. East/6 vs. West
vs. Metro Division: 5
Back-to-Backs: 1
The theme of this year’s schedule for the Penguins is very much a Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday one. Pittsburgh has a couple of Friday games as the year goes on, but they almost never play on Monday’s or Wednesday’s. They almost always play on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s. Just a little early heads up if you want to schedule other events in your life accordingly.
The big event this month is smack dab at the front. A nationally televised game in New York is big at any time, doubly so when it serves as opening night and the first meeting of Mike Sullivan going up against Sidney Crosby for the first time. To a lesser degree, it’s Dan Muse getting his first action as an NHL head coach in the arena where he was an assistant the past few years. Big game. The next game is the Pittsburgh home opener, followed by Sullivan getting the opportunity to knock out his first trip back to PPG Paints Arena as an opposing coach.
After that sure-to-be-emotional first week of the season, the Pens will be ready for a getaway. Luckily the schedule seems to note that and affords them something of a reset by making a trip to California early in the year. It’s never a bad time to go out that way, but this trip usually seems like it’s scheduled in January for the Pens (a better team to leave Pittsburgh for the sun). They’ll knock it out early this season, and for the first time in seemingly ever — there are no back-to-back games on that trip.
Similar to the 2024-25 season, the Pens play 12 October games and in the exact same manner of having a five home/seven road split in the season’s first month. Very unlike last season, where there were only two divisional games against Metropolitan foes, the Pens start right off with rival matchups fast and furious. The first three games of the season alone are NYR-NYI-NYR then later on in the month there is a visit from the Blue Jackets and a trip to Philadelphia.
Competition-wise, it might seem like not that challenging on the surface. Yes, there is that trip to Florida looming, but only four of the month’s 11 unique opponents made the post-season last year (FLA, MIN, STL, LAK). None besides the Panthers won a round. Then again, almost everyone on the schedule this month, save for San Jose, has aspirations to be involved in the playoffs next spring. Teams like Vancouver and Anaheim and the Islanders will be looking to get off to good starts to position themselves for the long road ahead.
October represents almost 15% of the season and should give the Pens a pretty good indication of where they stand. Early November looks very, very challenging at first glance with the first games of the month being: @WIN, @TOR, WSH, @NJD and LAK. October, on paper and a few months away, looks a little more manageable. 2025-26 might be a matter of how long the players and coaches can keep the wheels on for the season, and based on the schedule they might be able to have some luck with a decent enough start.