It doesn’t seem like it now, but before you know it in a few weeks things will get busy on the ice. NHL camps will come and go in a hurry, like they always do, and the next long season will be upon us throughout fall, winter and spring.

Looking ahead, here’s how things will start for the Pittsburgh Penguins in their 2024-25 campaign.

Month: October
Number of games: 12
First Game: October 9th
Home-Road: 5-7
Conference Breakdown: 6 vs. East/6 vs. West
vs. Metro Division: 2
Back-to-Backs: 2

The first thing that stands out is that this schedule is a lot more condensed and busy than the start of last season. Last year, the Pens only had nine games in the month. This year, there are 12 games. Three extra games might not sound like too much extra, until remembering there’s only three weeks of games in October. Teams have to squeeze a few more now to make way for the two-week NHL break in February to fit in the NHL’s “4 Nations Faceoff” tournament.

Beyond the busy start that will have three games in first four days of the year, four in six and as eight in 14, the Pens will be right in the center of a lot of firsts. Pittsburgh’s home opener and season start is also the Rangers’ first game of the year. Then the Pens head to Detroit and Toronto for both of those club’s home openers.

A weird quirk is the first six games of the month all come against Eastern Conference opponents, then the script flips and the final six games of the month are all against Western teams. History buffs might also notice that the first four contests are all against Original Six teams (too bad Chicago and Boston weren’t after them!)

As to be expected early in the year, the division matchups are scarce, but we will see a few. Both the Rangers and Hurricanes will visit PPG Paints Arena. That will present a big challenge, since both are expected to be two of the strongest (if not THE two strongest) teams in the Metropolitan Division next season.

Given football owns the fall, there is only one weekend afternoon game — a Sunday October 20th 3pm eastern start against Winnipeg. But fear not for missing the Steelers, they don’t play on that day until the Sunday night 8pm game.

October will be a road month for the Pens, with two decent-sized trips to Canada taking place. Even though Pittsburgh gets the benefit of traveling the fewest miles in the whole league in 2024-25, the four games in seven day in a tour of Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver is a daunting path to take.