Oct. 2 vs. Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center
Time: 7:00 p.m.
TV: MNMT
Radio: Team 980, Caps Radio Network
Washington Capitals (0-0-0)
Carolina Hurricanes (0-0-1)
Friday night in Raleigh, the 2026-27 edition of the Washington Capitals breaks the seal on what they hope will be a prosperous and exciting season. After missing the playoffs with the 12th best points percentage in the League last season, the Caps take the ice against Carolina with a handful of new faces, many of which are attached to hulking bodies.
The Caps are opening a season of 80-plus games with a multiple-game road trip for the first time since 2019, and they’re opening the season with a set of back-to-back road games for the first time ever, again in a season of 80 or more games. Washington opened the pandemic-shortened 2020-21 season with back-to-back road games in Buffalo, but no fans were in the buildings and that season was 56 games in length.
After facing the Hurricanes on Friday, the Caps will head further south to Tampa where they will supply the opposition for the Lightning’s home opener on Saturday night.
“I think it’s a good challenge for our group,” says Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “It’s two teams that we know very, very well, it’s two teams that have been extremely successful over the last 5-10 years, [the Hurricanes are] defending Cup champs.”
As currently constituted, three of Washington’s four forward lines and two of its three blueline pairings have at least one player who was not with the team in training camp at this time last year. And even the team’s one holdover line – Alex Ovechkin with Dylan Strome and Ryan Leonard – never got to play together because of a lower body injury sustained by Ovechkin early in camp. The trio never got to skate together in a preseason contest.
Having some new lineup toys is exciting for Carbery, but as he watches other teams and games around the League – Washington’s Friday season opener is on the fourth night of the season – he sees some players trying to shake off some rust and still seeking to establish some chemistry.
“What I’m trying to help our guys with is just going to school, which I feel like is going around the League,” says Carbery. “And [Hurricanes coach] Rod [Brind’Amour] talked about it after the [Tuesday] game against Florida. With the shorter [training] camp, once the puck drops for real, your pressure [intensifies] and your time and space [is diminished]. And I think you saw it a little bit in that Carolina/Florida game.
“All of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Whoa! I haven’t been under this type of pressure all summer, and camp didn’t give me quite enough time to get ready for what I’m feeling out here on the ice.”
Teams around the League have shown some rust, and the short preseason combined with a two-game veteran max for exhibition appearances made it difficult to develop chemistry for lines and pairs that haven’t played much – or at all – together before camp started.
“It was a little bit like a feeling out process,” says Caps center Dylan Strome, after watching the Carolina/Florida game on Tuesday. “You saw, with Brind’ Amour’s [press conference] after the game, it just wasn't comparable to the preseason games they played. So yeah, getting used to it, getting adjusted back again [is important].
“Obviously, there are some good teams playing against each other. Carolina and Florida are good hockey teams. It's going to be no different for us going to Carolina. I feel like that’s two good teams going in. Obviously, they get shut out at home through 64 [minutes] and 56 [seconds], so they're going to be firing on all cylinders as we expect, and we'll be ready to go.”
The Caps had a single “dress rehearsal” with most of their lineup on the ice – aside from captain Alex Ovechkin (lower body) – but that game against Boston was a week ago. The Caps forged a 3-2 overtime win over the Bruins, but only one of the five goals in the game was scored at 5-on-5.
“You saw it in the Boston game a little bit,” says Carbery. “Passes are in guys’ feet, they’re on the backhand, they’re exploding. And now it’s going to go to another level. The Boston game was pretty much an NHL preseason game with mostly veterans playing on both sides.
“But now you’re going to go into a regular season, and Carolina makes it as difficult as any team in the National Hockey League in taking away time and space with their skating ability and their sticks, and they’ve got a game under their belt. So, that could be a recipe for just not a good situation if we’re not making sure than when we get into some situations, we don’t have to overcomplicate it. Make sure that we’re moving the sticks, as they say in the NFL, right? And just stay with it. It doesn’t have to be a home run; we can hit singles and we can continue to live to fight another day.”
We appreciate Carbery working the two other major pro sports that are currently being played into his reply. Hockey, baseball and football; it’s why this is the best time of year, every year.
Difficult circumstances abound for the Caps this weekend, but there is still plenty of excitement to get the season underway.
“We haven’t played in a week, either,” says Caps center Pierre-Luc Dubois. “We’re extremely excited. Camp is always fun, getting back with everybody. But playing in the regular season is a lot different. It’s a lot more fun.”
Carolina raised its second Stanley Cup banner on Tuesday night ahead of its season opener with the Panthers, then dropped a 1-0 overtime decision when Gustav Forsling scored the lone goal of the game in the waning seconds of the extra session.
In dropping a shutout decision in their season opener after winning the Cup, the Canes became the fifth team ever to suffer that fate, and the first since Oct. 8, 2014 when the San Jose Sharks blanked defending champion Los Angeles.
Bet on the Canes being bent upon bouncing back Friday against a Metro Division rival. Friday’s game marks the first of two early season visits to Raleigh for the Caps; they’ll make their second and final visit of the season to Carolina in less than two weeks, on Oct. 13.
