Pittsburgh will open the NHL's regular season at Tampa Bay on October 12
By Pittsburgh Penguins
The Pittsburgh Penguins will open their 2021-22 regular-season schedule, which is presented by UPMC, against the defending Stanley Cup Champions as they travel to Tampa Bay to take on the Lightning for their banner-raising ceremony on October 12.
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Penguins fans will have plenty of opportunities to see the team early on in the year, as eight of the team's first 10 games will be played at PPG Paints Arena. Following Pittsburgh's season-opening two-game road trip against Tampa Bay and the Florida Panthers on Oct. 14, the Penguins will return home for a season-long eight-game homestand that spans through the rest of October and early November.
Pittsburgh's eight-game homestand will include its home opener on Oct. 16 against Patrick Kane and the Chicago Blackhawks. The team will also host the Dallas Stars (Oct. 19), Toronto Maple Leafs (Oct. 23), Tampa Bay (Oct. 26), Calgary Flames (Oct. 28), New Jersey Devils (Oct. 30), Philadelphia Flyers (Nov. 4) and Minnesota Wild (Nov. 6). The Penguins have one other instance where they will have a homestand longer than four games - a six-game homestand which falls from Jan. 23-Feb. 1 against Winnipeg, Arizona, Seattle, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Washington.
To view the complete 2021-22 schedule, click
here
. Start times and broadcast information will be released at a later date.
The NHL's schedule will return to the more traditional format that fans had become accustomed to prior to the 2020-21 season, as the Penguins will face each Metropolitan Division opponent four times (two home/two road), each Western Conference opponent twice (one home/one road), and each Atlantic Division opponent three times. The lone exception in the Metropolitan Division is that Pittsburgh only travels to Carolina once, and only hosts the New York Islanders once. Half of the Atlantic Division foes visit Pittsburgh twice and half host the Penguins twice. The teams that Pittsburgh hosts twice are Buffalo, Detroit, Florida and Montreal.
The Penguins will get their first crack at the NHL's 32nd team - the Seattle Kraken, on December 6 in Seattle. Former Penguins Jared McCann and Brandon Tanev and the Kraken will come to Pittsburgh for their lone visit on January 27.
Pittsburgh's schedule features some noteworthy home games that fans will want to circle on their calendar:
Season ticket information for the 2021-22 campaign can be found
here
.
Due to the NHL's All-Star Break and the scheduled time off to allot for the 2022 Olympic Games (please see below for information regarding the Olympic Break), the Penguins will only play four games in February. The first comes on Feb. 1 at home against the Capitals. Following that, the Penguins won't play again for 23 days, as they'll resume action on Feb. 24 in New Jersey, and then conclude their February slate with back-to-back games on the 26th (versus New York Rangers) and the 27th (at Columbus).
Below are a few other tidbits regarding the Penguins' schedule:
Per NHL PR: No final agreement or decision has been made to this point regarding the possible participation of NHL Players in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. In the event NHL Players participate in the 2022 Winter Olympics, the NHL regular season will resume on Wednesday, Feb. 23. If, for whatever reason, there is no NHL Player participation in the Olympics, a revised Regular Season schedule will be released which, to the greatest extent possible, will adopt the dates and games reflected in the schedule contemplating Olympic participation.
