I’m already tired of the regular season. Is that bad?

Odd that all 4 Pens games come 1/21/10 or later in the season.

Some sked notes from Corey:

Actually, Pittsburgh comes to DC on Feb. 7 (Super Bowl Sunday) and March 24 — Jan. 21 and April 6 are at Mellon Arena. My bad.

Yes, the Caps are scheduled to be in Montreal on Nov. 28.

Flyers are at the Phone Booth on Oct, 27 and Jan. 17.

John Tavares comes to Washington for the first time on Oct. 30; Penguins are at Verizon on Jan. 21, March 24.

Mike Knuble returns to Philadelphia in Game No. 3, Donald Brashear returns to Washington in Game No. 4.

I’ll repost these Fast facts:

I count 12 back to back games.
longest road game is 4. And we have 2 of them
Worst stretch is the month of Dec. 7 of 9 games on the road. 1@ home. 3 on the road, then back home for 1, and on the road for 4.
No Jan. 1st game in DC.
7 of 9 games in February are on the road. All are before the 13 of Feb.
7 of last 10 at home.

Western Conference teams the Caps play twice: Detroit (YAY!), Columbus (what, so Steve Mason can get two more shut-outs?), and San Jose (ehhhhhhh)

The last four home games are Atlanta, Boston, Atlanta, Boston….

That’s just weird.

It is nice that 7 of the last 10 games are at home this year after last year’s quirk due to the Frozen Four….

From the Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/obama-outshines-all-stars/article1219201/), via CI:

" Usual Suspects has learned the NHL has shelved plans for a special re-launch of its 2009-10 season in the first week of March, following the Vancouver Olympics.

The centrepiece was to be a game featuring Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins and Alex Ovechkin’s Capitals in Washington. The concept was to capitalize on the profile hockey will gain in the United States from the Vancouver Games by featuring Crosby and Ovechkin, the NHL’s top two TV attractions, in a special venue in the U.S. capital – possibly the National Mall.

According to sources with knowledge of the plans, details were discussed during meetings at the NHL draft last month, but there was not enough time to pull all the elements together. In particular, NBC was reluctant to commit to the time after putting its main schedule on hiatus for the 16-day Olympic break. Instead, when it announces the 2009- 10 schedule Wednesday, the NHL will concentrate on its now-traditional New Year’s Day Winter Classic set for Fenway Park in Boston and the Montreal Canadiens/Capitals spectacular at Olympic Stadium in Montreal on Nov. 28. "

Ovechkin vs. Crosby cagematch on the mall, anyone?

And this is making it sound like Montreal vs. Washington in Olympic Stadium is a done deal.

• Twelve back-to-back games (same as last year) and two of those are back-to-back road games. The remaining ten are evenly split between road-home and home-road back to backs.

• The team travels out West twice, once for a three-game trip in mid-December (COL/VAN/EDM) and once for a two-gamer to close out the calendar year and begin a new one (SJ/LA). Otherwise, the furthest west they will travel is St. Louis (Feb. 13) and Chicago (Mar. 14).

• The team has a stretch of 8 games in 15 days from Nov. 6th through the 21st (four home and four away).

• The Caps play 20 games post-Olympic break (12 home and 8 away). In the middle of that part of the slate, between Mar. 4th and Mar. 20th, they literally play every other night (five consecutive home games, followed by four consecutive road games).

• For fans, we’ve got 20 weekend home games (Fri-Sun) on the schedule

hot damn, LA new years here I come!

This year, it’s the top two teams in the conference, plus a team we played twice last year. I don’t get it.