Overview
- The Maple Leafs lost both split‑squad preseason games to the Montreal Canadiens, dropping the Scotiabank Arena game 4-1 and the road game 4-3 in overtime on Saturday night.
- Gavin McKenna made his Maple Leafs preseason debut in Toronto and logged heavy minutes with John Tavares and William Nylander, creating several scoring chances and receiving broadly positive assessments from coaches and media.
- Jim Hiller emphasized skating and paced McKenna’s special‑teams work, giving Jack Roslovic most first‑unit power‑play reps while McKenna and Matthew Knies rotated into looks as the staff eased the rookie into NHL responsibilities.
- Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz split the net in Toronto with Bobrovsky steady in his minutes, Darren Raddysh scored Toronto’s lone home goal on the power play, and the B‑squad’s Colton Sissons and others produced the road goals before Cole Caufield won it in OT for Montreal.
- The split format was used to view as many players as possible under game conditions and to inform roster choices ahead of more preseason games, including a Sept. 23 split‑squad outing and the Maple Leafs’ Sept. 29 regular‑season opener.