The 2018-2019 NHL regular season begins on Wednesday, October 3, when the puck is dropped between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montréal Canadiens in Toronto sometime after 7:00 p.m. Between now and then, a lot is going to happen.
The deadline of interest is Tuesday, October 2 at 5:00 p.m. New York time. That is when all NHL teams must submit a cap-compliant 23-man roster to the NHL.
The NHL roster must stay at no more than 23 players from the October 2 deadline until the trade deadline. The count does not include any player on any form of IR, so for the Leafs, they don’t count Nathan Horton.