NHL releases Pittsburgh Penguins 2024-25 schedule

Pittsburgh opens the season at home against the Rangers on October 9th

The NHL gave a tease for the home openers on each team. Based on that, we could piece together the first three games for the Pittsburgh Penguins this season. The Pens will open the 2024-25 season at home against the New York Rangers on Wednesday October 9th.

That’s 14 weeks from tomorrow, which chances are if you step outside into the heat right now feels mighty far away.

Today the league released the rest of the schedule. Get your trip ideas ready, if you’re a pre-planner or looking to pair traveling somewhere at the same time as the Pens, here it is! Very nice touch by the Penguins to incorporate Jeff Carter on the reveal. NFL teams always get creative with their schedule news drops, fun to see it come to hockey to a small degree.

From the team:

Beginning on Friday, Oct. 18 with a matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Penguins play 19 weekend home games on either a Friday night (3), Saturday (10) or Sunday (6), accounting for 46% of all home games.

Pittsburgh’s schedule features some noteworthy home games that fans will want to circle on their calendar:

November 27 vs. Vancouver: The Penguins host the Vancouver Canucks for Pittsburgh’s annual game on the night before Thanksgiving.

December 3 vs. Florida: Pittsburgh hosts the defending Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers in their only visit to PPG Paints Arena.

December 23 vs. Philadelphia: It’s the Battle of Pennsylvania as the Penguins host their cross-state rivals before the Holiday Break for their first of two visits to Pittsburgh.

February 22 vs. Washington: Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin go head-to-head in a Saturday afternoon tilt between Metropolitan Division rivals.

April 8 vs. Chicago: 2023-24 Calder Trophy winner Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks make their only trip to Pittsburgh.

The Penguins’ schedule has 14 sets of back-to-back games, beginning with the first two games of the season – Oct. 9 versus the New York Rangers and Oct. 10 against the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena.

This year in the division, the Pens play all teams twice at home and twice away — with the exception of only hosting Carolina one time and only visiting Columbus once all season as well (boo). This scheduling imbalance could be changed with the next CBA, there are talks that the league and players association could be expanding the schedule to 84 games, but that is far from certain and wouldn’t change for a few more years anyways.