{"id":913966,"date":"2026-09-29T10:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T10:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913966\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T10:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T10:50:26","slug":"toronto-maple-leafs-montreal-canadiens-to-battle-as-new-nhl-season-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913966\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens to battle as new NHL season begins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790679026_51_imageRedirect.jpeg\" class=\"object-fit-cover\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Toronto Maple Leafs&#8217; Gavin McKenna (92) skates against the Ottawa Senators during second period NHL hockey pre season action in Toronto on Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Frank Gunn<\/p>\n<p>By The Canadian Press<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tSep 29, 2026 | 4:00 AM\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>A new NHL season kicks off tonight with some historic rivalries and the reigning Stanley Cup champions celebrating their title.<\/p>\n<p>The Carolina Hurricanes will raise their championship banner before taking on a Florida Panthers side reinvigorated by the return of captain Aleksander Barkov.<\/p>\n<p>Four Canadian teams are also in action, starting with No. 1 draft pick Gavin McKenna and the Toronto Maple Leafs hosting a Montreal Canadiens team that made it to the Eastern Conference final last season.<\/p>\n<p>The Edmonton Oilers also begin their first season under head coach Mike Babcock, hosting the rebuilding Vancouver Canucks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs&#8217; Gavin McKenna (92) skates against the Ottawa Senators during second period NHL hockey pre season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-913966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}