The NHL will officially announce their full 2008-09 schedule tomorrow at 3 PM but bits and pieces have already been leaked.  Mark Thursday, October 9 on your calendar as the day the NHL season officially begins (well in North America anyway), though none of those games have been announced yet. 

According to Tom Gulutti, the Devils will play their season and home opener against the New York Islanders on Friday, October 10 - which is also the Islanders’ first game of the season.  New Jersey will follow that up with a visit to Pittsburgh the next night, possibly the home opener for the Eastern Conference Champions.  Other confirmed games for the Devils include home and away dates with the Kings (via the Kings’ website) on January 10th in LA and February 7th at the Rock, and a December 31st matchup in Dallas against Sean Avery’s new team, the Stars.  LA, Dallas and Chicago will be the three teams from the Western Conference that the Devils match up with twice.

As far as the other locals, the Islanders’ home opener is Saturday, October 11 against the St. Louis Blues, the day after their season opener.  Of course, the Rangers will open with an overseas ‘home-and-home’ with the Tampa Bay Lightning on October 4th and 5th.  The only other Ranger-related scheduling note I can report as of now is that they also are playing Dallas twice, proving the NHL has a sense of humor by scheduling Avery for two games each against his favorite nemesis and former team.

In other related scheduling news, the NHL has announced its third outdoor game - and second in the US - for January 1, 2009 12 PM at Wrigley Field between two original six teams, the Detroit Red Wings and the Chicago Blackhawks. 

And proving the NHL can at least get it right some of the time, all the Canadian teams from the Eastern Conference (Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto) are having a home-and-home with the Canadian teams in the Western Conference (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton).