Our first meaningful clues about Jim Hiller’s vision for the Leafs’ opening night lineup arrived with the first practice of camp on Thursday morning.
As always, opening-day training-camp lines are written in pencil. The combinations will change throughout camp, especially with Morgan Rielly missing for now, and the Leafs have only just begun evaluating how the many new pieces fit together.
Still, with a new head coach and a significantly overhauled roster, the first look was always going to be interesting and somewhat revealing.
Here is how Group A lined up:
Forwards
Matthew Knies — Auston Matthews — Jack Roslovic
Gavin McKenna — John Tavares — William Nylander
Nick Paul/Easton Cowan — Colton Sissons/Nick Paul — Easton Cowan/Colton Sissons
Brandon Duhaime — Teddy Blueger — Steven Lorentz/Dakota Joshua
Extra: Dakota Joshua/Steven Lorentz
Defense
Jake McCabe — Chris Tanev
Oliver Ekman-Larsson — Darren Raddysh
Emil Andrae — Ben Danford
Troy Stecher — Nick Blankenburg
Goaltenders
Sergei Bobrovsky
Anthony Stolarz
McCabe-Tanev reunited after Chayka’s encouraging health update
The likelihood of a Jake McCabe-Chris Tanev reunion only increased when GM John Chayka described Tanev “as healthy as anybody” in yesterday’s press conference.
When both players were available in 2024-25, McCabe-Tanev served as the Leafs’ dedicated shutdown pairing, shouldered the most difficult assignments, lived in defensive-zone situations, killed penalties, and consistently kept the Leafs on the right side of the territorial and goal share. Tanev played 75 regular-season games and all 13 playoff games that season, while the pairing established itself as one of the league’s more dependable matchup units.
The Leafs returned to it at the beginning of 2025-26, including on opening night against Montreal, when McCabe and Tanev started only two of their combined 15 faceoffs in the offensive zone and kept a clean sheet together while playing 23-24 minutes apiece.
Unfortunately, constant injuries limited Tanev to just 11 appearances last season, one of which lasted less than six minutes. Even in the tiny sample, the contrast with and without him was difficult to ignore, as Tanev still finished at a plus-eight. The Leafs went 6-3-2 in his 11 games and collected only 64 of a possible 142 points without him. McCabe’s play slowly deteriorated over the course of the season without #8.
That’s all well and good, but the Leafs do need to tread carefully here in terms of the load on Tanev. He turns 37 in December, played only 11 games last season, and underwent core-muscle surgery in March after multiple attempts to return to the lineup. Reuniting him with McCabe is an easy move in many respects, but overloading him too much with big minutes across matchup, d-zone draw, and PK situations over an 84-game slate is playing with fire.
The defense pairs
Morgan Rielly was absent from Group A due to what the Leafs described as a “viral condition,” opening a place among the eight defensemen for Ben Danford. Assuming Rielly’s illness is short-lived and he is ready for opening night, Thursday’s combinations provided at least one clue about how the Leafs’ top six could fall into place:
Jake McCabe — Chris Tanev
Morgan Rielly — Darren Raddysh
Emil Andrae — Oliver Ekman-Larsson
A Rielly-Raddysh pairing would come with clear defensive question marks, but the deployment strategy is easy enough to envision: McCabe-Tanev absorb the toughest matchups and defensive-zone burden, allowing Rielly and Raddysh — a strong shooting threat and puck mover in Raddysh, a capable puck transporter in Rielly — to receive the more favourable offensive deployment.
A Swedish pairing of Andre-OEL should be fully credible in a bottom-pairing capacity, and the Leafs have two right shots battling to take Andre’s minutes in Troy Stecher and potentially Nick Blankenburg (PTO) if it is not.
Without Rielly in the mix, though, this is still speculative and a wait-and-see.
McKenna-Tavares-Nylander
Up front, the Leafs opened camp with Jack Roslovic beside Matthews and Knies, which is hardly a surprise. Roslovic provides speed, a right-handed shot, and a history with #34 as well as lighting the lamp on the top lines of Edmonton and Carolina in the first half of the last two regular seasons. On a roster with few natural right-wing options, it was always one of the most logical combinations for Hiller to explore early in the year, even if it might not be the long-term solution (and some might view it as a placeholder while a certain young winger gets his feet wet).
Speaking of a certain young winger getting his feet wet, this was the most interesting line of the morning:
Gavin McKenna — John Tavares — William Nylander.
It’s a video-game line, and against favourable matchups, the amount of creativity and finishing talent among this trio makes it easy to fantasize about the possibilities.
Still, Tavares and Nylander will be responsible for skating alongside a vulnerable 18-year-old star rookie. They would need to take the responsibility of policing the game around McKenna seriously, through physical pushback and accountability. You can be forgiven for wondering whether that combination of linemates is naturally suited to that kind of assignment.
The line also has to prove it can check well enough to remain together. Tavares’ foot speed is an established concern at this stage of his career, Nylander’s defensive awareness and engagement fluctuate, and McKenna will inevitably experience rookie mistakes with and without the puck. They won’t have the puck all shift every shift, and someone has to get the puck back on the forecheck and take care of the defensive zone.
Paul, Sissons, and Cowan form a flexible third line
The Leafs rotated Nick Paul and Colton Sissons — a left shot and a right shot — through the third-line center position, with Easton Cowan also flipping between the two wings.
As a C, Paul’s size and offensive track record are both more appealing, assuming he can rebound toward the player who scored between 16 and 24 goals in each of his previous four seasons. Paul at C and Sissons at RW would also allow Cowan to play his strong side versus his off-wing.
On the flip side, Sissons offers more foot speed than Paul down the middle.
The larger question is whether Paul and Sissons can provide Cowan with enough offensive support. Paul’s history suggests he can, but Sissons finished with 11 points last season, and Paul was producing like and playing the minutes of a fourth-line player by the end of Tampa’s season.
Lorentz vs. Joshua on fourth line
Most of the tweeted lines listed Dakota Joshua as the extra forward, with Duhaime, Blueger, and Lorentz forming the fourth line, although Mark Masters saw the opposite, with Joshua over Lorentz. Regardless, there should be a legitimate competition between Lorentz and Joshua through the preseason and potentially into the opening weeks of the regular season.
As we noted in his player preview, Lorentz’s history of keeping his head above water in ugly defensive minutes is noteworthy and probably shouldn’t be slept on as much as it has been. Lorentz and Scott Laughton finished 11-12 in five-on-five goals together last season despite starting just 17.1 percent of their shifts in the offensive zone on one of the league’s worst defensive teams.
Lorentz’s also led all Leafs forwards in total shorthanded ice time last season, averaging 2:14 per game, and played a major role during the PK’s strongest stretches. The Leafs went 14-for-15 during one run in November, ranked first in the league on the penalty kill in December, and allowed only one power-play goal over nine games during another stretch in January. We will see how much Hiller wants to involve his top players such as Matthews on the PK; if they want to reduce some of Matthews’ 1:10 PKTOI/game from last season, Lorentz’s value shorthanded arguably becomes even more relevant.
On the other wing, Duhaime brings jam, speed, and has the history of making up 1/3rd of a credible fourth-line shutdown unit with Nic Dowd in Washington. But he scored nine points last season, and Lorentz’s career high is 19. Joshua’s history with Blueger and superior finishing ability should make this an open competition in the days and weeks ahead.
