Tundra’s Hockey Weekend Watchlist

The Carolina Hurricanes are ready for their opening night matchup. Source: Carolina Hurricanes (twitter/X)

With the season underway, the action can come at you fast. It’s why we want to provide a rundown of what to watch, follow, and pay attention to when all the games are taking place.

There are four games on Friday, 14 on Saturday, and four more on Sunday. So, let’s dive right in.

Lightning-Hurricanes

This will be an emotional series to put it lightly for both fanbases. The Carolina Hurricanes are still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene from a few weeks back and the Tampa Bay Lightning saw their city ravaged by Hurricane Milton this week. This will be a home-and-home series and both fanbases will hope for a few hours, that hockey can give them some joy.

On the ice, these two games look to be great matchups between two fo the best teams in the NHL. The Hurricanes are one of the superteams eyeing the Cup while the Lightning have plenty of star power to carry them, notably, Nikita Kucherov who was a Hart Trophy finalist last season. Expect plenty of fun moments in this one.

Senators-Canadiens

There’s a lot of bad blood between these two teams. The Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators are already rivals and in the preseason, they met and had plenty of battles with Arber Xhekaj particularly getting into it with some of the Senators skaters. 

This game is Saturday night at 7:00 PM Eastern and aside from the tension, it looks to deliver. Both teams have young rosters looking to take a big step forward and this can is a litmus test for the two.

Flames-Oilers 

The first Battle of Alberta of the season takes place Sunday night at 8:00 PM Eastern. There’s more excitement for this game considering how both teams fared on opening night. 

The Flames entered the season expected to be one of the worst teams in the NHL and down 4-1 to the Vancouver Canucks, they came back to win 6-5 in overtime. The Oilers look to get over the hump after losing in the Stanley Cup Final and their first game couldn’t have been a worse start, losing 6-0 to the Winnipeg Jets. 

The Oilers look to bounce back but as the Flames showed, it won’t be easy to put this team away.

Developing Stories 

• Utah won their inaugural game but now they begin a road trip on the other side of the country. They play the New York Islanders on Thursday, the New York Rangers on Saturday, and the New Jersey Devils on Monday. Talk about getting thrown into the fire.
• The night before the Battle of Alberta, the Oilers host the Chicago Blackhawks. This will either be a get-right game for a star-studded team or a trap game as they look ahead to their Sunday night rivalry game. Either way, it’s the matchup all hockey fans desire as Connor Bedard faces Connor McDavid, the next great player against the greatest player of this generation.
• The other big rivalry game this weekend is Sunday night with the Minnesota Wild and Winnipeg Jets going at it. Only a few miles and a border separate these two teams but they both look to sneak up on a lot of people in the Central Division with two well-built rosters.