Not only will this be Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner’s first games as Maple Leafs, tonight’s game marks the beginning of the franchise’s centennial season. A deluge of Toronto media has arrived in the city for the day and buses of fans are invading the strip malls surrounding the Canadian Tire Centre in preparation for a momentous occasion in the [suburb outside the] nation’s capital.
This will be the first of four meetings between the teams this season. In the Phil Kessel era in Toronto, even if the Leafs were a bad team, you could always count on wins over Senators – Toronto won 21 of 31 games against the Senators throughout Kessel’s Leaf career, with Phil contributing 18 goals and 39 points.