Golden Knights will face Flyers in 2018-19 home opener
The Golden Knights’ second season home opener is set.
The Western Conference champions will host the Philadelphia Flyers at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 4 at T-Mobile Arena, the team and the NHL announced Wednesday.
The Knights and Flyers split their series last season, with the Flyers winning 4-1 in Las Vegas on Feb. 11 and the Knights winning in Philadelphia, 3-2 on March 12. The win also was goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury’s 400th career victory.
The Knights’ first road game will be in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Saturday, Oct. 6 against the Wild. Minnesota won all three meetings last season.
The complete 2018-19 schedule will be released by the NHL at 2:30 p.m. Thursday. The team had announced its seven-game preseason slate Monday.
Ticket information for the regular season and preseason will be released at a future date.
Board of Governors meet
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Wednesday’s Board of Governors meeting at Encore was routine and included mostly updates on financial issues.
“The salary cap is expected to go up to between $79.5 million and $80 million,” Bettman said, clarifying previous reports that the cap would go to $82 million. This year’s cap was $75 million.
Bettman also said the league continues to monitor legalized sports betting that continues to grow among the states and that teams will be able to generate advertising revenues from casinos as long as the ads are generic.
As for the Seattle expansion bid, Bettman said there was no news to report and the vetting process on the application continues. He also added there was no timetable to make Seattle the NHL’s 32nd franchise. However, he did say that a starting date in the fall of 2020 was still in play.
“Things are progressing and there don’t appear to be any hitches at this point,” he said.
The owners were also briefed on a plan to reduce the size of the goaltenders’ chest and arm protectors for next season.
No talk of outdoor game
Bettman was asked if there had been discussions on the Knights playing in an NHL outdoor game in 2019-20 as the visiting team given there is no suitable place for the team to host an outdoor event (Sam Boyd Stadium is not considered a viable option).
“No, we have not had any discussions,” Bettman said. “It’s probably premature at this point.”
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Contact Steve Carp at scarp@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913. Follow @stevecarprj on Twitter.
