The 2013 NHL schedule likely won’t be released until Thursday or Friday of this week, but it’s looking more and more like the season will begin on Saturday, January 19.
There were reports late Sunday night that all 30 teams could be in action on that day, which would make sense from a marketability perspective. But it has also been a foregone conclusion that the lockout-shortened 48-game season will only features intra-conference games, and with 15 teams in each conference, it’s impossible to have all 30 teams play in the same day. Not without at least one cross-conference game.
Nevertheless, we’d expect 28 of the league’s teams to play that Saturday, and the Flyers seem like a favorite to have a home game that day. A game against the Penguins would make the most sense — the teams and the league clearly want to open with a bang, and there’s no better way to do that then Flyers/Pens.
The Flyers were originally scheduled to host the Calgary Flames on January 19 at 1 p.m. That game clearly won’t be happening if there are no cross-conference games, and that’s probably for the best since I don’t think there’s another team in the NHL less exciting than Calgary.
A home game against a division rival at 1 p.m. on the 19th would be great, though. That’s the same day Penn State and Vermont face off at the Wells Fargo Center too, so the doubleheader would be fantastic.
