Pre-season was announced yesterday and you can find here.

The Washington Capitals announced their 2009-10 regular season schedule today and open on the road in Boston on Thursday, Oct. 1.

The Capitals will make their Verizon Center debut on Saturday, Oct. 3, when they host the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second game of the season.

The 2009-10 schedule includes a two-week break for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, which will feature NHL players. The Capitals will be off for 17 days from Feb. 14-March 2.

The 2009-10 NHL schedule format, similar to last season’s, has the Capitals facing the other teams in the Southeast Division six times each and the remaining Eastern Conference opponents four times each. Washington plays each team in the Western Conference at least once, with two games each against Columbus, Detroit and San Jose. Nine Western Conference teams will visit Verizon Center.

More than half of the Capitals' 41 home games at Verizon Center fall on weekends, including nine Friday games, six Saturday games and six Sunday games. The schedule features holiday home games on the day before Thanksgiving (Nov. 25 vs. Buffalo), the day after Christmas (Dec. 26 vs. New Jersey) and Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 7 vs. Pittsburgh).

All but six of Washington's home games are scheduled to start at 7 p.m., with the exceptions all falling on Sunday afternoons.

Television and radio broadcast plans will be released at a later date. For a complete schedule, please visit http://www.washcaps.com/.

Information on single-game purchases will be sent to full season ticket holders closer to the start of the season and prior to the public onsale. In addition, TicketMaster Ticket Exchange will not be available until individual game tickets are placed on sale to the general public. For Dewar's 12 Club package information, please contact your Capitals Guest Services Representative.

Photo 2009 © Cheryl Nichols. All Rights Reserved.

From the press release:

ARLINGTON, Va. – The Washington Capitals have signed center/right wing Boyd Gordon to a one-year contract, vice president and general manager George McPhee announced today. In keeping with club policy, financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Gordon, 25, completed his sixth professional season with the Capitals in 2008-09 and registered five goals and nine assists. He was third on the team with a 56.1% faceoff percentage in the regular season and led the team in the playoffs at 63.3%.

Gordon was also third on the team in shorthanded ice time, playing an average of 3:39 per game, and his 16 penalty minutes tied Viktor Kozlov for the fewest on the team for anyone who played more than 30 games. He had two game-winning goals and the Caps were 12-0-1 when Gordon recorded a point (5-0-0 when he scored a goal).

According to Capitals Insider, the one-year deal is worth $761,250. The team's other restricted free agents, Shaone Morrisonn, Eric Fehr and Jeff Schultz, have until Wednesday to accept their qualifying offers.

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The Globe and Mail reports that when the NHL issues the 2009-2010 schedule tomorrow, the Caps will have a road date against the Montreal Canadiens -- in Montreal's Olympic Stadium.

The final tinkering to the 92nd NHL regular season will be made in the next 24 hours, but a league source indicated yesterday that a Habs home game against the Washington Capitals and star sniper Alex Ovechkin “is still in the mix for late November.”

The indoor game at Olympic Stadium is expected to be contested on Nov. 28 or the previous Saturday to help commemorate the Canadiens’ centennial celebrations that will conclude on Dec. 5 with a match against the rival Boston Bruins at the Bell Centre.

Caps fans will find little solice in playing inside the "Big O", a run-down antiquated stadium, as opposed to playing in the Winter Classic, which spurned the Capitals and instead invited the hated Philadelphia Flyers to face the Boston Bruins at Fenway Park on Jan. 1.