Ahead of various big games this season, I’ll bring in knowledgeable guest contributors who support the Maple Leafs opponent, to give readers a sense of the other team. The Maple Leafs season kicks off against their famous rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, on Wednesday, October 9, a game certainly big enough to warrant a deep dive. My good friend Marshall Chapman, who is the biggest Habs fan I know, graciously agreed to do a write up on the Canadiens for Maple Leafs Gazette.

If you’re a Leafs fan looking for the scoop on this year’s iteration of the Habs, a Habs fan who somehow ended up on this page, or a hockey fan looking to consume as much content as possible, this is for you! I’ll hand it off to Marshall here—Sawyer

Montreal Canadiens Preview

October 9th, season opener, Leafs vs. Habs, downtown Montreal. What could be better?

As both Toronto and Montreal begin their seasons – both enter a new year feeling optimistic.

The Montreal Canadiens entered their pre-season on a high note. The emergence of NCAA record setting rookie defenceman Lane Hutson, followed by the rock solid performances of David Reinbacher, Logan Mailloux and Adam Engstrom, proved that the Canadiens boast the best prospect pool of defencemen in the entire NHL. Solid performances from young forwards like Oliver Kapanen and Luke Tuch, with the offensive explosion of 2024 fifth overall pick Ivan Demidov over in the KHL, gave Habs fans lots to look forward to.

All this, of course, with the best top six the team has iced since, arguably, 2007/08. The start of the season promises the re-unification of a bonafide elite top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky, followed by a healthy Kirby Dach centering Alex Newhook and big-time offseason acquisition Patrik Laine. 

However, hope and optimism for the season crumbled at the 3:49 mark of the fourth preseason game on the schedule when Laine went down with a sprained knee after a collision with Toronto Marlies forward Cedric Pare. This came after Matthew Knies hammered Reinbacher with a clean hit four seconds into the game, knocking him out of the contest. The team announced the following week that both would be out long term: Laine for two to three months, and Reinbacher for up to six. 

A real GTA Franklin moment: “Ah, shit. Here we go again.” A moment that Canadiens fans are all too familiar with after leading the league in man games lost to injury over the past three years.

The rest of the Habs preseason snowballed into an absolute gongshow. The game between Toronto and Montreal showcased three fights: Arber Xhekaj jumped Pare, Josh Anderson fought Philip Myers, and Slafkovsky fought Marshall Rifai. Three guys the Canadiens don’t want fighting in preseason. 

Three nights later the Habs played Ottawa, where Xhekaj and Ridley Greig became public enemies number one for their respective fan bases. Greig hit Dach with a high, late blindside, causing the Hab to leave the game for a brief time. After Greig refused to fight his Canadien-equivalent, Michael Pezzetta, Xhekaj was ejected for a high chicken wing on Tim Stutzle. A brief skirmish between Xhekaj and Brady Tkachuk led to Dach and Greig fighting at the end of the game, and carried over into a rough final preseason game between the two clubs on Saturday night. 

What appears different about this Canadiens team from years previous has been their willingness to stick up for each other. Whether it be Xhekaj, Pezzetta, Anderson, or the physical emergence of Kaiden Guhle and Jayden Struble on the backend, the Canadiens are a scrappy, pesky team. They’d be well served to add another gritty option in their bottom six, especially with the opening in their forward corps in Laine’s absence. Their tough guys match up well with the Leafs tough guys, led by Ryan Reaves and Simon Benoit. 

The game has yet to be played, but one thing is for certain: Wednesday’s gonna be fun!