Today the NHL teams are announcing their home opening games, and the Toronto Maple Leafs finally announced a date for something that we didn’t have to comb through other teams tweets and websites to find out. A rare move for the franchise that is now operating in complete secrecy from everyone around them.

Here is where I’d post their tweet but the Leafs don’t like releasing news to their fans, it was leaked by another team - because of course it was.

ANYWAY

Toronto Maple Leafs vs New York Rangers on Saturday, Oct 7th

The Leafs kick off their campaign to get past the first round of the playoffs in 14 years vs the New York Rangers, who are grasping at relevancy for perhaps the last season.

Why the Rangers? Who knows. It should be a rival like Ottawa Senators, or the Montreal Canadiens, or Buffalo Sabres. You know, something to make that first game especially hyped up.

Nope, we got the Rangers. Fantastic. Hopefully the first away game is a better choice...

They’ll also be participating the the Winnipeg Jets* home opener on October 4th:

Sigh. This league, sometimes.

It will be nice for Auston Matthews to take on the Calder trophy runner up Patrik Laine, to give him some tips on how to be a better player early on in the season.

Defending Big D has a list of all of the openers, and most of them are oddball choices, so at least it’s consistent.

Now that we have dates for the first few games of the regular season, how about a pre-season schedule?

Or a development camp announcement?

Come on Leafs, we need more than just a taste, hook us up!