While oppressive heat and humidity hang heavy over the DMV on this Thursday, we can comfort ourselves with cool thoughts of autumn and ice rinks. Today, the Capitals and the NHL unveil the 84-game schedules for all 32 clubs. After each of the League’s 32 teams revealed its home opener for the upcoming campaign on Wednesday – the Caps host the Pittsburgh Penguins in Washington’s home opener Oct. 7 – the full regular season’s schedule hit the streets this afternoon.
This season marks the beginning of a new collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and the NHLPA, and the uptick from 82 to 84 games balances the divisional schedules for all 32 teams. The NHL last played an 84-game slate in 1993-94.
First up, this season brings a pair of relative schedule rarities. Aside from the abbreviated 56-game 2020-21 season when a condensed schedule of games was played in empty buildings, this marks the first time since 2009 – and just the third time in Alex Ovechkin’s 22 seasons here – that the Caps are scheduled to play a set of back-to-back games at home. They will play their final two home games of the 2026-27 season on Saturday, April 3 (against Columbus) and will finish their home slate a night later against the Penguins.
In 2020-21, the Caps played four sets of back-to-back games at home, but none in front of fans. They also played back-to-back home games on March 1-2, 2016, but the first of those two games – against Pittsburgh – was rescheduled after a mid-January blizzard caused a pair of postponements that had to be made up later in the season.
Prior to this season, the last time the Caps were scheduled to play home games on consecutive days was when they played back-to-back matinees here on Jan. 31-Feb. 1, 2009, against Detroit and Ottawa, respectively. That bit of scheduling allowed the Caps to have their traditional Super Sunday matinee; the Super Bowl was played on Feb. 1, 2009.
During Ovechkin’s rookie season of 2005-06, the Caps were still in the habit of their “Hangover Special” home date, a New Year’s Day afternoon game in the days before the advent of the NHL’s Winter Classic in 2008, which eventually led to the demise of the Caps’ annual New Year’s Day matinees. In 2005-06, the Caps hosted Philadelphia here on New Year’s Eve afternoon, and they tangled with Atlanta following the turn of the calendar about 24 hours later.
And for the first time ever in the Caps’ 52 seasons in the NHL, the team is scheduled to both open and close the campaign with a multi-game road trip. Washington opens the season with a two-game southern road trip in a set of back-to-back games, the first of 14 back-to-backs for the Caps in 2026-27. After opening the season on Oct. 2 against the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes, the Caps continue south to Tampa to face the Lightning a night later.
Washington will finish out the season with a three-game road trip to Columbus, Ottawa and Philadelphia. The regular finale unfolds against the Flyers at noon on April 10.
The Capitals actually did begin and end the pandemic-truncated 2019-20 season with multi-game road trips at the beginning and end of that regular season slate, but that’s only because the season came to an abrupt pandemic-induced pause and was eventually shutdown about a month ahead of its originally intended conclusion.
Washington’s 2026-27 season is home-heavy early in the season, and it’s road-heavy late. Even with the season-opening road trip, the Caps will play 11 of their first 15 games at Capital One Arena. Included in that early season stretch is a leisurely five-game October homestand that features at least two days between each game. Those first 15 games will be played in a span of 42 days, with five separate three-day gaps between contests and three more two-day breaks between game action.
Off days and lengthy gaps between games are plentiful early, but they’re hard to come by later in the season. Including the NHL’s annual late-December holiday pause and a nine-day break in February for the NHL All-Star weekend, Washington will have a total of 22 multi-day breaks between games. More than half – 12 of 22 – come before the end of November and only four of them – each of the two-day variety – come after the Feb. 4-12 pause for All-Star weekend.
The Caps will play their first 17 games across the season’s first 46 days, and they will conclude the campaign by playing 22 games in the final 45 days. Here are some other notes on the Caps' '26-27 schedule:
- The Caps will play half of their eight-game October home slate against Metropolitan Division opponents
- The Caps play five of their last six games – all in April – against Metro Division foes
- The Caps’ longest homestand is five games, from Oct. 14-28 and from Feb. 14-23
- The Capitals’ longest road journey of the season is a six-game journey out west from Dec. 3-15 in which they’ll play in three different time zones
- Washington will play its trio of traditional home dates, hosting Philadelphia on Thanksgiving Eve (Nov. 25), Florida on Black Friday (Nov. 27) and Utah on Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 14)
- Five of the Caps’ first 15 home games are matinees; all five feature different start times
- The midpoint of the season comes after a Jan. 8 game against the Sharks in San Jose
- The Caps will play their final game outside of the Eastern Time Zone on March 10 in Chicago
- Chicago is also the Caps’ final Western Conference foe of the season; the Caps host the Hawks on March 30
- Washington will conclude its season series with each of its other 15 Western Conference opponents before it faces Chicago for the first time
- Nine of the Caps’ 14 sets of back-to-back games come in the second half of the season
- In addition to its rare home/home set of back-to-backs in April, Washington will play six sets of home-road back-to-backs, four sets of road-road, and three sets of road-home
- The Caps play a pair of home-and-home sets this season, playing at New Jersey on Nov. 12 and hosting the Devils two nights later, and playing a home-road set of back-to-backs with Detroit on March 23-24
By the Day:
Sunday (10): Five at home, five on the road
Monday (7): Three at home, four on the road
Tuesday: (16): Eleven at home, five on the road
Wednesday (11): Six at home, five on the road
Thursday (12): Three at home, nine on the road
Friday (10): Five at home, five on the road
Saturday (18): Nine at home, nine on the road
By the Month:
September (0):
October (12): Eight at home, four on the road
November (12): Seven at home, five on the road
December (14): Five at home, nine on the road
January (14): Seven at home, seven on the road
February (10): Six at home, four on the road
March (16): Seven at home, nine on the road
April (6): Two at home, four on the road
