The Pittsburgh Penguins had their schedule finalized for the 2025-26 season on Wednesday.
Fans already knew they would be starting the season on the road against the New York Rangers on October 7, but were waiting for the rest of the schedule so they could plan which games to attend. The Penguins will have their home opener two nights later, on October 9, against the New York Islanders, before playing the Rangers in Pittsburgh on October 11.
That second Rangers game will feature Mike Sullivan’s return to Pittsburgh for the first time since being named the head coach of the Rangers. He and the Penguins parted ways on April 28, paving the way for the Rangers to hire him on May 2. According to Bob Grove, this marks the first time the Penguins will open a season with three straight games against New York-based teams since the 1998-99 season.
Now that the full schedule is out, here are some quick miscellaneous thoughts on it.
March is a gauntlet
The Penguins will have a super busy March once the NHL players return from the Winter Olympics at the end of February. They will play 17 games in 31 days and face some of the top projected teams in the league, including the Vegas Golden Knights (twice), the Carolina Hurricanes (twice), the Colorado Avalanche (twice), the Winnipeg Jets, and the Dallas Stars. It’s going to be a brutal stretch of games, and it may feature a short-handed Penguins team, as they will likely be sellers at the 2026 trade deadline.
The California trip is early
This season’s California trip is beneficial for the Penguins because they will be able to complete it relatively quickly. After opening the season with three games against two of the New York teams, they will head to California to take on the Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, and San Jose Sharks. The road trip will take place during the second week of the season in October before the Penguins come home to play the Vancouver Canucks. They will start in Anaheim, then proceed to Los Angeles, and conclude in San Jose. It’s never too early to start planning to drink some coffee or your beverage of choice for those late-night matchups.
16 back-to-backs
In addition to the Penguins’ busy March, they’ll have 16 back-to-back games throughout the season, the most since the 2017-18 season. Penguins fans should be used to a good amount of back-to-back games in the Sidney Crosby era, since this is the ninth time that the team has had at least 16 during his tenure. One of the back-to-backs that stands out on the schedule is when the Penguins host the Florida Panthers on April 4 and 5. Although this type of scheduling occurred frequently during the 2020-21 season due to pandemic restrictions, it hasn’t happened much since. It at least helps the travel for the Panthers while also allowing Penguins players to sleep in their own beds both nights. Get ready for the goalies to split most, if not all, of these back-to-backs when they come up on the schedule.
Get ready to wake up early!
November will feature the NHL’s annual Global Series, with the Penguins taking on the Nashville Predators in Stockholm, Sweden, on November 14 and 16. The game on the 14th will start at 2 p.m. ET, but the game on the 16th will begin at 9 a.m. ET. It’s even worse for Penguins fans who live in California, as the game will start at 6 a.m. PT. Be sure to set your alarms to avoid oversleeping!
Only one trip to D.C.
The Penguins and Washington Capitals have had a bitter rivalry during the Crosby and Ovechkin era, and it will continue for at least one more season. The two teams will play three times, with two of the games at PPG Paints Arena. That means the Penguins will only go to the D.C. once, but there’s a catch. The Penguins will play at Capital One Arena on April 12 in their second-to-last game of the season, right after they play the Caps on April 11 in their final home game of the season. If this is Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin’s final NHL season, we could see quite a sendoff for two of the best players in NHL history. Both players have yet to decide if this will be their final season. Their contracts are set to expire at the end of this upcoming season.
Each NHL season is unique, and it’s going to be fascinating to see how the Penguins deal with some of these factors on their schedule when they come up. The season may still be a little more than two and a half months away, but it’s going to be here before you know it.
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Featured Image Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
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