The American Hockey League released their schedule for the 2013-14 season this afternoon. The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguin will begin the season on the road October 5th against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
The Penguins home opener is the following Saturday, October 12th against the Hershey Bears. The WBS Penguins full team schedule is here.
I like that there is a little more variety in this year's schedule. Two new teams were added to this year's schedule from last year, those being the Hamilton Bulldogs and Utica Comets. Add that to trips to Rochester and Toronto and the Penguins play against four Western Conference teams this season.
There's still the 12 games against rival Hershey, and 38 total games within the division, but still plenty of road trips on the season. Adirondack plays the Penguins four times this season, their last season before moving to Allentown for the 2014-15 season.
Below are some notable games on this year's schedule:
Joey Mormina's return to Wilkes-Barre: Wednesday November 6th vs. Syracuse Crunch
Alex Grant's return: October 26th against Norfolk
Trevor Smith's return: April 13th against Toronto
Longest Road Trip: Six games in 10 days from January 17th - 26th (at PRO, at POR, at PRO, at NOR, at NOR, at HER).
Biggest Homestand: Six games in 17 days from December 11th - 27th (vs. SPR, vs. HER, vs. UTICA, vs. WOR, vs. SYR
Breakdown of Opponents
In year's past the league would release a schedule matrix to diagram how many times each team plays who. I have the Penguins breakdown below with how many times they play in parenthesis. Home games and road games are split evenly with each team:
Hershey (12), Syracuse (10), Binghamton (8), Norfolk (8), Albany (4), Adirondack (4), Providence (4), St John's (4), Utica (4), Portland (2), Springfield (2), Hartford (2), Bridgeport (2), Worcester (2), Manchester (2), Rochester (2), Hamilton (2), Toronto (2)
