Leafs Gameday: Splitting With The Sens
The NHL preseason appeared quick, and departs just as fast. After losing to Montreal twice in ten minutes on Saturday, the Toronto Maple Leafs get their final pair of games out of the way on Wednesday in another split-squad situation against the Ottawa Senators.
Fast Facts
| Puck Drop | September 23rd @ 7:00 p.m. (both games) Game A at Scotiabank Arena Game B at Canadian Tire Centre |
| Broadcast | In Toronto: Sportsnet 1 (TV) In Ottawa: TSN 4/5 (TV), TSN 1050 (Radio) Both games on Sportsnet+ Online |
| Gameday Odds | No current odds market. |
About the Maple Leafs (0-1-1)
For those who don’t want to read a full recap, Saturday would’ve been a pretty rough result for the Maple Leafs in the standings mattered in the preseason. Thankfully for them, they do not. Toronto’s “A” game saw positive flashes from the like of Auston Matthews, Gavin McKenna, and Darren Raddysh, but also saw a hungry and opportunistic squad of secondary Montreal players capitalize on their best opportunities and pull away with a surprisingly commanding 4-1 win. Not an alarm bell just yet for Toronto, but a result that should rattle some cages.
About the Senators (0-0-1)
The Senators find themselves once again in an identity reset, after having captain Brady Tkachuk steer his way out of town and into a safe space with his brother in Sunrise. To their credit, they did what they could to simultaneously restock their cupboards while not succumbing to a full rebuild, moving Tkachuk for a bevy of draft picks while moving the best one of the bunch for a package centred around San Jose’s William Eklund, a back-to-back 50+ point producer in his age 22 and 23 seasons.
Ottawa’s hope will be that their strong underlying numbers last season carry over into this year, and that they’ll get better years out of their goaltending tandem, which holds onto Linus Ullmark while former Leaf-on-paper-only Samuel Ersson backs him up.
The Sens come into tonight with one preseason game to their name so far, and it’s one where they suffered a similar fate to the “B” Leafs on Wednesday. Facing Montreal in a Kraft Hockeyville matchup in Trois-Rivières, Eklund initially put the Senators up just a minute in, only for the Habs to equalize quickly. Another back-and-forth of goals in the second and third period sent the game to overtime, and just like Saturday, Cole Caufield scored the OT winner. So, both teams will be coming in hungry to shake off the frustrations of losing to the same opponent.
Projected Lineups
| Leafs in Toronto (Game A) | Leafs in Ottawa (Game B) |
|---|---|
| Matthew Knies – Auston Matthews – Jack Roslovic Gavin McKenna – John Tavares – William Nylander Easton Cowan – Nick Paul – Colton Sissons Michael Pezzetta – Bo Groulx – Zack MacEwen Jake McCabe – Chris Tanev Morgan Rielly – Darren Raddysh Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Troy Stetcher | Steven Lorentz – Teddy Blueger – Brandon Dumaime Brendan Brisson – Tinus Luc Klobar – Vinni Letteri Jacob Quillan – Luke Haymes – Ryan Tverberg Landon Sim – Henrik Rybinski – Miroslav Holinka Emil Andrae – Nick Blankenburg Marshall Rifai – Phillippe Myers Noah Chadwick – Ben Danford |
| Starting Goalie: Sergei Bobrovsky (2025/26: 27-23-1, 3.07 GAA, 0.877 SV%) Backing Up: Artur Akthamov | Starting Goalie: Anthony Stolarz (2025/26: 0-2-0, 4.76 GAA, 0.877 SV%) Backing Up: Samuel Hlavaj, Ken Appelby |
The third line hops over to the A group today, as does Oliver Ekman-Larsson and hey, look – Morgan Rielly is feeling good enough to go a few days ahead of schedule!
The B squad is even lighter than Saturday as a result, but that gives the end-of-lineup players a final in-game opportunity to prove themselves with some extra minutes. Note that the B lineup is likely not in a perfect order, projected via practice inferences and depth chart positioning.
Last Matchup
These teams each faced each other last in Game 82 of the 2025/26 regular season, in a game that was a bit of a formality for both. The Leafs were broken down and just waiting for their first playoff miss in a decade to confirm itself, while the Senators were just trying to not get too banged up ahead of the playoffs.
This game only one 5-on-5 goal, when William Nylander scored his 30th of the season midway through the third period. Ottawa carried the result home, however, scoring a powerplay goal in both the first and second periods and adding an empty netter with six seconds left in the season. The goalie battle in this game was Denis Hildeby vs. James Reimer. Truly, we’re entering a very different environment tonight.
Injuries Of Note
The Leafs came out of Saturday unscathed, though there was a noticeable absence in Dakota Joshua from both games. He’s not playing in either of these games, either, and there’s no firm understanding of what’s keeping him out. My conspiracy theory here is that the team is looking to move on from him either via trade or waivers, but will wait until they use the LTIR tag-down from Max Domi to make the transaction to maximize their cap accrual.
The Senators are without Artem Zub (knee) and Warren Foegele (undisclosed) for both of their squads tonight, as they both look to be ready for the start of the season.
Streaks Of Note
Now that everyone has played a preseason game, there are even fewer streaks to speak of than before. Raddysh, Matthews, OEL and John Tavares will be looking to carry over their production from Saturday into today’s A game, while Colton Sissons, Easton Cowan, Marc Johnstone, Henrik Tybinski, and Michael Pezzetta will look to double-dip in the B game.
The Senators.. I dont’ know? Dylan Cozens had two points in their single game, I guess he’s the hot hand?
Early Thoughts
I suppose if there’s one thing I’ll have my eyes on in the A game, is I’d like to see how the McKenna – Tavares – Nylander line rebounds. All three individual players showed flashes of skill on Saturday but got heavily outshot and out chanced in a way that might be concerning come the regular season – all that talent with none of the defensive drive is a bit of a concern if it’s going to come up red in the aggregate. I’m also looking forward to seeing Sergei Bobrovsky play most if not all of this final preseason game.
Over in the B game, Emil Andrae and Nick Blankenburg should both get significant time to show why they’re both worthy of being the sixth man on the blue line. Just by virtue of not having a contract, Blankenburg will likely be the one under most pressure, but it’ll be interesting to see how they both show in a game where they’ll be among the most talented options.
