In a weird way it feels like the season actually begins tonight.
You almost want to write off the first game as with all of the ceremony around it plus the fact that it was the only game in the league for the first two periods. Honestly with the way both teams played you’d be forgiven if you just want to move on from it. Raising the banner and seeing the Storm Surge with the Cup at center ice was great, but that’s now all done and there are still 83 games left.
If you’re Washington, it’s 84 as tonight
starts their season. Many thought they would be starting their post-Ovechkin era, but instead he starts his 22nd year with the team on a year-by-year basis. They spent this offseason trying to give him a better year than last.
While Washington made the playoffs by winning the Metropolitan Division in 2025, they missed them entirely in 2026. With Ovi back, the Capitals tried to bolster the team up and down the lineupby acquiring Alex Tuch and Jordan Kyrou via trades and signing Boone Jenner and Vincent Desharnais. That’s a lot of new firepower and their contracts will surely keep them in DC long past the time Ovechkin leaves.
Still, as Tom Gulitti noted in that post, with the condensed preseason and training camp that leaves a lot less time for players to get acclimated to their new linemates and positions. However, they have a solid coach in Spencer Carbery who got a nice contract extension this summer. It also helps they are playing in a division that, on the surface, looks like it may be more forgiving than the Atlantic.
Fortunately Carolina won’t have to wait until the morning skate to know the starter, as Washington is starting the season on a back-to-back road trip, so Carbery had to go ahead and prep for who was going to start both games. Tonight, it’ll be Logan Thompson. Since he’s been in Washington, the Canes are 1-1-1 against Thompson, including going 1-0-1 against him last season as both meetings were before the end of 2025. He only surrendered a total of three goals during those two games, and only gave up one in the shootout. It was a logical choice.
As for the lines, barring a change at morning skate here’s what they’re starting with.
On Carolina’s side, we’ll see how Rod Brind’Amour wants to use last change to line up the matchups. Practice on Thursday had the same lines and pairings as we saw on Tuesday night, and it seems pointed that Deslauriers is still going to be out there with Tom Wilson skating around. It’s doubful that line would match up with them, but it’s more of an insurance policy against someone who likes to throw his weight around.
Pyotr Kochetkov manned the starter’s crease on Thursday, but Brind’Amour wouldn’t necessarily commit to the starter. Carolina also has a back-to-back, and they’ll be hopping a plane to Philadelphia as soon as as this game is done. That’s worth noting because, typically, Brind’Amour doesn’t like doing a morning skate on a back-to-back so it’s possible he would view this as the only chance to get PK some action in that crease before starting him Saturday instead of Friday. That said, we should know after morning skate today who’ll man the crease tonight and who’ll take on Philly tomorrow.
The other part to know here—tonight is the debut of the Hurricanes Hockey Network for fans inside the Hurricanes broadcast footprint. As a quick reminder—the NHL is the one leading the negotiations for carriage of this and the other three teams (Columbus, St. Louis, and Minnesota) that are utilizing the NHL Central Production unit. As of this writing they have been able to come to an agreement with Spectrum Cable and Fubo if you prefer to get your cable networks through a streaming provider. If you don’t have either, you can subscribe to the HHN through Prime Video for $19.99/month or $99/year. The league will continue to negotiate with other providers and supposedly their satellite carrier is set to be announced soon.
That said, if you aren’t sure you want to subscribe or you just outright forget before the puck drop, you’re likely still going to be able to watch it in North and South Carolina thanks to agreements with WRAL in Raleigh, as well as Cox and Gray Media throughout the Carolinas. This will be a simulcast of the HHN, and together these entities will provide simulcasts of ten Hurricanes games, the other nine being on Saturdays.
As usual if you live outside the footprint, you’ll need to have access to ESPN Select (used to be ESPN+, part of ESPN Ultimate and dear God can they just stop with all these names). You can also subscribe to NHL Center Ice if your preference is to avoid ESPN at all costs.
It’s always a fun one when the Caps are in town, if you aren’t going to be in Lenovo tonight, here’s how to catch the action:
Time: 7 PM Eastern
Location: Lenovo Center—Raleigh, NC
TV: Hurricanes Hockey Network. New name, same faces as Hanna Yates and Shane Willis handle the pregame duties at 6:30, and then Mike Maniscalco handles play-by-play with Tripp Tracy providing color. This is also one of the ten “Saturday Night Hockey” broadcasts. Tonight you’ll be able to see the simulcast of the HHN on WRAL (Raleigh), WAXN TV64 (Charlotte), WECT 6.1 and 6.2 (Wilmington), WITN 7.1 (Greenville/New Bern), WHNS 21.2 (Greenville SC, Spartanburg SC, Asheville NC), WMBF 32.1 + 32.2 (Myrtle Beach SC), WCSC 5.1 + 5.3 (Charleston SC), and WIS 10.1 + WPAM 18.1 (Columbia SC).
Streaming Video: Hurricanes Hockey Network on Prime Video in the Hurricanes Footprint. Outside you’ll need to use the ESPN app and have at least an ESPN Select subscription, which comes with ESPN Ultimate.
Radio: The pregame Storm Watch with Adam Gold on 99.9 The Fan starts at 6:30 PM, At 7 PM the Hurricanes Radio Network (consisting of 99.9, 730 The Game in Charlotte, ESPN New Bern 107.5/1490, and ESPN Greenville 107.5/1570) will pick up the Mike Maniscalco and Tripp Tracy HHN simulcast.
Lines: (Per DraftKings) Hurricanes -148, -1.5 (+170) /Capitals +124, +1.5 (-205). O/U 6.5 +105/-125
