The Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs twice in split-squad pre-season action Saturday, while five other NHL clubs were also in exhibition play across the league, according to NHL.com’s pre-season roundup.
At Bell Centre, Montreal edged Toronto 4-3 in overtime as Cole Caufield scored the winner with 38 seconds left in the extra period, finishing off a two-on-none with Lane Hutson. Hutson had a goal and two assists in the win, and Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov also scored for the Canadiens. Henrik Rybinski and Colton Sissons scored for Toronto in their debuts with the club.
In the second split-squad matchup, at Scotiabank Arena, Montreal was the more dominant side in a 4-1 win. Phillip Danault scored twice, with Maksymilian Szuber and Samuel Poulin also finding the net for the Canadiens. The game marked debuts for Toronto’s No. 1 overall draft pick Gavin McKenna, defenceman Darren Raddysh and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, who stopped 10 of the shots he faced in his first appearance in a Maple Leafs uniform.
Elsewhere around the league, the Dallas Stars beat the St. Louis Blues 2-1 in their pre-season opener on a late second-period breakaway goal from Jack Becker, with Arttu Hyry also scoring for Dallas. The Minnesota Wild needed overtime to get past the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2, with Tyler Pitlick scoring the winner at 3:58 of the extra period on a shot that deflected in off Chicago defenceman Dylan Anhorn.
In the Pacific Division, the Vegas Golden Knights opened their pre-season with a 4-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings, with Jackson Hallum scoring twice in the third period, including the go-ahead goal. The Seattle Kraken beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-2, with Jake O’Brien contributing a goal and an assist in what was also new Canucks coach Manny Malhotra’s debut behind Vancouver’s bench.
The Canucks are Edmonton’s opponent in both teams’ regular-season opener, a home-and-home set for Sept. 29 in Edmonton and Oct. 1 in Vancouver.
Photo: generic ice hockey action image via Unsplash, not from any of Saturday’s games. Credit: Markus Spiske / Unsplash.
