The Washington Capitals announced their 2021 schedule.
The Washington Capitals and the NHL released their schedule for the entire 2020-21 season on Wednesday afternoon. It is another early Christmas present for hockey fans everywhere. The Caps will open the season on Jan. 14 with a back to back affair in consecutive nights with the Sabres in Buffalo.
Following that game, the Caps will travel to Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins. While that won’t be on consecutive days, they will play each other two straight times. After that the Caps will open up their home schedule at Capital One Arena on Jan. 22 against the same Sabres team they began the season with.
Buffalo happens to be the same spot the Caps finished last regular season at before the league decided to pause for the novel coronavirus pandemic. It happened on March 9 and the Caps fell in a 3-2 shootout loss.
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Per Mike Vogel of WashingtonCaps.com, this will be the first time the Caps open the season in Buffalo since the 1981-82 season and the first time they started the season with two games against the same opponent since 1984-85 (vs. Philadelphia Flyers).
Pittsburgh happens to be where the Caps last won a regular season game. That came on a March matinee back on the 7th just days before the pandemic really took over. It’s the first time in franchise history the Caps will open the season with four straight road games.
The Caps will only see seven different opponents this season. That is because the league wants to minimize travel with the pandemic still not having gone away. The Caps will compete in the East division which will feature familiar foes from the Metropolitan Division plus the Boston Bruins and Buffalo.
The only two Metropolitan teams the Caps won’t see this season are the Carolina Hurricanes and Columbus Blue Jackets. That is a bummer mostly for Hurricanes fans who act like their rivalry with the Caps is the biggest in the sport.
HELLO, BEAUTIFUL! 😍🗓
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) December 23, 2020
A first look at our 56-game schedule for the 2020-21 regular season.#ALLCAPS | @CapitalOne pic.twitter.com/SbaD0BC3y7
But rivalries will be taking centerstage almost every night. Especially against the Pittsburgh Penguins where we’ll get a dose of eight games between Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. It was like the hockey gods wanted it to happen.
The Caps will play a total of 10 sets of games on back to back nights and they’ll play out their 56 game schedule over a span of 114 days which will conclude with two home games against the Philadelphia Flyers. You can view the whole schedule above. Which games are you looking forward to watching, Caps fans?