Penguins To Open Season Against Stanley Cup Winner Capitals

PITTSBURGH, PA - If the Penguins want some small modicum of revenge against the Washington Capitals for knocking them out of the NHL playoffs, they won’t have long to wait next season. The Pens will open the 2018-19 schedule at home on Oct. 4 against the Caps, the NHL announced Wednesday.

The remainder of the Penguins’ schedule will be released Thursday.

The Caps eliminated the Pens in a six-game second-round playoff series in May, then went on to win the franchise's first Stanley Cup by defeating the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights in the finals.

There is grousing aplenty in Washington that the Caps don’t play the Pens in their own home opener so their bitter rivals will have to watch the team hoist its Stanley Cup banner.

“This is about revenge,” Scott Allen wrote in The Washington Post. “After the Penguins won their third Stanley Cup in 2016, the NHL cruelly scheduled Pittsburgh’s home opener for the following season against the Capitals, a team they had knocked out of the playoffs that May and seven previous times since 1991.”

Allen’s suggestion: That Washington delay its banner-raising ceremony until Pittsburgh’s first trip to D.C.

Image via Shutterstock.

Subscribe to Pittsburgh Patch for more local news and real-time alerts.