In each of the past two seasons, the Flyers have begun their regular seasons out on the West Coast, opening in Los Angeles and Arizona in October 2016 and then kicking things off in San Jose and Los Angeles in 2017. Today, we learn that the third time is the charm here, as the Flyers will open up their season on October 4 in Las Vegas, where they’ll watch the reigning Western Conference champions celebrate (for the second season in a row, by the way) before getting their seasons underway.
CIRCLE
YOUR
CALENDAR!https://t.co/bEmgBahPwS pic.twitter.com/MatWESpXBU
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) June 20, 2018
The game, officially, will begin at 7 p.m. PT, which is 10 p.m ET. With that said, puck drops prior to season openers can take a while to actually happen, as teams usually introduce their entire lineup and have some sort of season-opening ceremony. And if any team would take some time pre-game to celebrate, it’s Vegas, who made a habit out of drawn-out (and admittedly entertaining) pre-game festivities during its successful inaugural season.
It should be fun to see either way. Hopefully Flyers fans will flood T-Mobile Arena like they did last February.
We also learned today that the Flyers’ own home opener will also be with a team out west, as the San Jose Sharks will come into town five days later to take part in the Wells Fargo Center’s first game of the season.
We’re going shark hunting to kick off the 2018-19 season at the @WellsFargoCtr 😏 #IsItOctoberYet
More info: https://t.co/XiBSCXrC1s pic.twitter.com/RSdwEZPXZX
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) June 20, 2018
Given that five-day gap between the two games mentioned here, it’s likely that the Flyers will have at least one and maybe two more games out west before they head home. Maybe they’ll wrap up their season series with San Jose all in the first week of the year. Maybe they’ll make a trip out to Arizona or Colorado or somewhere else in the western part of the country. We’ll find out tomorrow when the full schedule is released, because for some reason the NHL announces its schedule Like This and we just have to wonder.
Until then, the countdown is on: 106 days until regular-season hockey.
