Overview
- Gavin McKenna made his Maple Leafs preseason debut on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, and was slotted to skate on a line with John Tavares and William Nylander for a first live NHL test.
- Toronto’s home group at Scotiabank Arena featured Auston Matthews, Matthew Knies and a confirmed start from Sergei Bobrovsky while Jack Roslovic received the bulk of first power-play reps in morning skate.
- Montreal’s Bell Centre game put newcomer Chris Kreider on a line with captain Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield and highlighted defensive prospects David Reinbacher and Adam Engstrom as candidates for NHL minutes while Kaiden Guhle recovers from surgery.
- Both clubs ran the games simultaneously at 7 p.m. ET to show every camp player and broadcasters carried the matchups with ESPN+ streaming the Toronto game in the U.S. and TSN, SN and RDS offering Canadian coverage.
- Coaches used the split-squad format to speed roster decisions in a shortened training window, with Jim Hiller cautious about McKenna’s early power-play role and prepared to adjust special-teams usage based on tonight’s live evaluation.