Five most intriguing NHL home openers

Carolina Hurricanes raise the banner in a potential Eastern Conference Finals preview

Carolina will host the Florida Panthers at 5 p.m. to open the NHL season on Sept. 29. That game will be full of intrigue, highlighted by the Hurricanes celebrating their first Stanley Cup Finals victory in 20 years and the return of superstar center Aleksander Barkov. It will be Barkov's first NHL action since tearing his ACL and MCL last summer.

It will be a rivalry renewed in the Garden State on Oct. 1

The New Jersey Devils had no shortage of disappointments last season. A brilliant start was derailed by yet another Jack Hughes injury (this one off the ice). They'll look to begin making things right when they host the Philadelphia Flyers in a Thursday night affair. The Flyers, fresh off their first playoff appearance of the Daniel Briere-Rick Tocchet era, are looking to prove they weren't a fluke.

There's nothing like the Original Six

Here's a two-for-one: the Toronto Maple Leafs will open one of the most important season's in franchise history on Sept. 29 as part of a TSN double header versus the Montreal Canadiens. The Leafs begin a season knowing they won't have a first-round draft pick while simultaneously breaking in new top pick Gavin McKenna. The Leafs are clearly trying to win now, part of a strategy to convince superstar Auston Matthews to stay in Toronto long-term.

Elsewhere, the Detroit Red Wings will open their home slate on Oct. 2 against the New York Rangers. Detroit is full of intrigue thanks to the Dylan Larkin trade request and massive front-office changes announced Wednesday, which likely will have a major impact on said trade request. 

Meanwhile, the Rangers finally did make good on their promise of a retool, adding two top-four defenseman in trades (Marcus Pettersson and Sean Durzi), an intriguing NHL-ready defenseman in the draft in Albert Smits, a potential 35-goal scorer in Pavel Dorofeyev and an interesting bounce-back bet in winger Oliver Bjorkstrand. The Rangers will be busy that week, opening their season in Boston on Sept. 29, opening their own home slate on Oct. 1 versus Tampa Bay and then immediately heading to Detroit for this game. 

Columbus Blue Jackets and Buffalo Sabres usually don't make headlines.

These are two teams that have previously tortured their fanbases. Buffalo is coming off its best season in a generation while Columbus was on the cusp of being a playoff team for the second year in a row. Plus, they share quite a bit of front office history. Jarmo Kekalainen, the best general manager in Columbus history, is now Buffalo's GM. John Davidson, the man who first hired Kekalainen in Columbus, is now part of the Buffalo front office. These are teams who could potentially compete for a wild-card spot.

Crosby vs. Ovechkin: One last time?

This really might be it. The Washington Capitals will be one of the last teams to play at home, ahead of only St. Louis, Ottawa and Florida. Hosting the Pittsburgh Penguins will be must-see television on Oct. 7. This will likely be one of the final opportunities to see Alex Ovechkin and the duo of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin head-to-head. Washington made major offseason adds to gear up for what feels like a redux of Michael Jordan's last dance in 1998.