Ottawa Senators @ Toronto Maple Leafs
07:00 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on: NHLN, SN

Hockey season is back! Both teams are playing their first game of the season, and it's the first game with the renovated Scotiabank arena.

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Is it even finished? Craig Berube said he's never been to the arena yet, as work is continuing, and training camp has been confined to the (I forget the corporate name) centre in Etobicoke. Is it Ford? I think it's Ford.

Normal practice is for the home team to play some fan-pleasing actual NHLers and the visiting team to get a look at some prospects.

Maple Leafs

The game today features this roster for the Maple Leafs made up of the serious lines from both practice groups:

The lines we've seen from this set of players are:

Matthew Knies - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner
Max Domi - William Nylander - Calle Järnkrok
??? - John Tavares - ???
Easton Cowan - Jacob Quillan - ???

The three extra forwards are Nikita Grebenkin, Max Pacioretty and Ryan Reaves. So I'm assuming that Pacioretty and Grebenkin, who have been practicing with Pontus Holmberg as a centre, will be the Tavares wingers. Ryan Reaves will be gifted to the Quillan line in place of their usual Alex Nylander.

On defence, where there is one extra, the pairings in practice have been:

Chris Tanev - Morgan Rielly
Oliver Ekman-Larsson - Jake McCabe
??? - Timothy Liljegren

The extras are Noah Chadwick and Cade Webber, one of whom will likely be the third pair partner to Liljegren.

Joe Woll and Matt Murray get the opening game.

No actual lines were used at morning skate.

That's hitting the Sens with an actual NHL team on day one. Tough to play against, indeed, Mr. Berube.

Ottawa Senators

For your reference, if you watched the WJC camp video in the Noah Chadwick T25 post, the really spectacular (in a bad way) defender he was paired with was Carter Yakemchuk who is 18. That's last year's Leafs PTO signing Noah Gregor on the second line, and good lord, Nik Kulemin is in this game!

This is a throw them to the wolves lineup. If you're interested in how extra-tilted this is, here's last year's first home game of preseason:

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The Game

Lines and pairing all subject to change of course.

It's preseason, the point here is to look at something almost like a hockey game and to leap to conclusions based on who scores.

Go Mostly Actual Leafs Go!


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