Dear Lord, Anyone But The Penguins

Photo by Gregg Forwerck/NHLI via Getty ImagesThe Carolina Hurricanes were awarded an outdoor game over the weekend. You may have heard about it. And as soon as the news started to spread across social media on Saturday morning, speculation instantly began on the identity of the opponent for the Stadium Series game.

For a while, it was seemingly a slam dunk to be the Washington Capitals. It just made sense: the closest geographical rival to the Hurricanes, the recent history of a playoff upset, a true rivalry in every sense of the word, the protestations of a vocal minority of Caps fans notwithstanding.

And then Samantha Pell and Tarik El-Bashir, two well-connected Caps reporters, tweeted…