{"id":199304,"date":"2025-10-09T02:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T02:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/199304\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T02:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T02:48:08","slug":"toronto-maple-leafs-top-montreal-canadiens-to-open-post-marner-era-in-toronto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/199304\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs top Montreal Canadiens to open post-Marner era in Toronto"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO \u2014 Morgan Rielly<\/a> scored the winner in the third period and added an assist as the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> topped the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> 5-2 in the first game of the post-Mitch Marner era Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Bobby McMann<\/a> and Calle Jarnkrok<\/a> also scored for Toronto before Auston Matthews<\/a> and William Nylander<\/a> added one each into the empty net. Anthony Stolarz<\/a> made 27 saves in both teams\u2019 opener to the NHL season. Nylander, John Tavares<\/a> and Steven Lorentz<\/a> also had two assists each.<\/p>\n

Oliver Kapanen<\/a>, with his first NHL goal, and Zachary Bolduc<\/a> replied for Montreal. Sam Montembeault<\/a> stopped 23 shots.<\/p>\n

McMann opened the scoring just one minute in before Kapanen jumped on a turnover with Montreal killing a penalty. <\/p>\n

Bolduc scored his first with the Canadiens in the second after being acquired from the St. Louis Blues<\/a>, but Jarnkrok tied things later in the period to set the stage for Rielly\u2019s clincher.<\/p>\n

Marner declined to ink a contract extension with Toronto \u2014 the club he cheered on as a kid that then selected him No. 4 overall at the 2015 NHL draft \u2014 last season before the Leafs were forced into a sign-and-trade with the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> for the star winger that netted depth forward Nicolas Roy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Takeaways <\/p>\n

Leafs: Roy, Matias Maccelli<\/a> and Dakota Joshua<\/a> all made their debuts for Toronto, which will look to replace Marner\u2019s minutes on the top line, power play and penalty kill by committee.<\/p>\n

Canadiens: Kapanen\u2019s goal came in his 19th NHL game. The 22-year-old became the fifth player on record in franchise history to accomplish the feat while short-handed \u2014 and the first since Chris Chelios<\/a> on Oct. 13, 1984.<\/p>\n

Key moment <\/p>\n

Leafs winger Matthew Knies<\/a> was denied on a breakaway midway through the third, but stayed with the play and fed Rielly in front for him to bury a shot upstairs on Montembeault.<\/p>\n

Key stat <\/p>\n

The Leafs and Canadiens met in their season-opening game for the sixth straight season and 23rd time overall \u2014 the highest total in NHL history. The Vancouver Canucks<\/a> and Calgary Flames<\/a> are next with 12 curtain-raising contests.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Canadiens: Visit the Detroit Red Wings<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Leafs: Visit the Red Wings on Saturday.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2025. <\/p>\n

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Morgan Rielly scored the winner in the third period and added an assist as the Toronto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-199304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}