Maple Leafs, Canadiens to open season with another chapter in historical rivalry

For the 24th time in the NHL history of their franchises and for the seventh consecutive season, the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs will begin their seasons against each other.

The showdown at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, to be telecast nationally in Canada in English and French (7 p.m. ET, Sportsnet, TVAS), will be the first of their 84 regular-season 2026-27 games, expectations high for both teams.

The Canadiens against the Maple Leafs, charter members of the NHL who begin their 109th League seasons, is always compelling viewing. That's especially true in Canada, where both teams have wildly passionate fan bases from coast to coast to coast – even in the five other Canadian NHL markets.

Canadiens' Cole Caufield (l.), who scored 50 goals last season, and Maple Leafs' Gavin McKenna, who is expected to make his NHL regular-season debut on Tuesday against Montreal.

Montreal went three rounds deep in the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Now, with a strong core of young stars coached by Martin St. Louis, headlined by last season's 101-point captain Nick Suzuki and 50-goal sniper Cole Caufield, 2025 Calder Trophy-winning defenseman Lane Hutson, seasoned leadership bolstered by incoming forward Chris Kreider, and reliable goaltending, the aim is no longer just to qualify for the postseason.

Rather, it's all about being a bona fide contender for the team's 25th Stanley Cup championship and first since 1993. Twenty-three of those titles have been won in the NHL, their first coming in the National Hockey Association in 1916.

Toronto might have more modest short-term goals. The Maple Leafs failed to make the playoffs last season and have advanced to the second round only twice since 2005-06, their last Stanley Cup won in 1967.

But there's plenty of excitement this season with the arrival of phenom forward Gavin McKenna, selected No. 1 by the Maple Leafs in the 2026 NHL Draft; a handful of intriguing roster additions, including veteran goalie Sergei Bobrovsky; captain Auston Matthews and forward William Nylander capable of filling the net; and new coach Jim Hiller.

Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden dives to foil a scoring attempt by Toronto's David Keon during a 1970s game at the Montreal Forum.

The two storied franchises are "a rivalry of cities, a rivalry of culture," late Canadiens Hall of Fame goalie and former Maple Leafs president Ken Dryden suggested timelessly in 2021. "When together you're good and in sync and you add the circumstance of possibility… when preparation meets possibility, things can happen.

"The rivalry felt its most intense and natural in the 1960s," Dryden said, the NHL doubling in size from six to 12 teams in 1967. "The teams were not only in sync, but they were in sync at their best. It's one thing to be mediocre together, which isn't so interesting. But when you're good at the same time, then you've got a chance for something."

The home team at Mutual St. Arena, Maple Leaf Gardens or Scotiabank Arena for 14 of the 23 games to date, Toronto is 14-8-1 in season openers played against Montreal, which is 9-11-3. The Canadiens have been outscored 71-64 with the Mount Royal Arena, Forum and the current Bell Centre serving as their home rink.

Toronto's Dick Duff watches Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante squeeze his glove on the puck, Montreal defenseman Doug Harvey watching at left, during the Canadiens' 5-0 Maple Leaf Gardens win on Oct. 29, 1958. Duff and Plante, both Hall of Famers, would play for both Toronto and Montreal during their careers.

The Maple Leafs had a season-opening win streak of three games against their often-bitter rival from 1921-23, another of four (2010-13) and a streak of three which included two overtime wins and a regulation victory from 2018-21. Montreal has won three in a row on one occasion, a 36-year span from 1924 to 1960, with the teams splitting the last four games from 2022-25.

There is one streak worth noting: Toronto is undefeated in home openers with Matthews as captain, having won 10 straight since his NHL debut in 2016-17.

Three times in mutual season-openers against the Maple Leafs, the Canadiens have won by shutout: Jacques Plante earned 2-0 and 5-0 victories at the Forum in 1955 and 1960, then Sam Montembeault's 48 saves at Bell Centre in 2024 anchored a 1-0 win. The Maple Leafs won by shutout in 2011, James Reimer backstopping a 2-0 victory on home ice.

Captains Nick Suzuki (l.) and Auston Matthews battle for the puck during a 2025 game at Scotiabank Arena.

Since the NHL's founding in 1917, this will be the 777th regular-season game between the Canadiens and Toronto – the so-called Arenas, then the St. Patricks and since 1927 the Maple Leafs. Montreal holds a 370-304-14 edge, with 88 pre-overtime and shootout ties.

It's been almost 105 years since the Canadiens and Maple Leafs – then the St. Patricks – first met in a game to open each of their NHL seasons.

Babe Dye and Corb Denneny each scored twice with Ken Randall adding another at Toronto's Mutual St. Arena on Dec. 17, 1921, for a 5-2 defeat of the visiting Canadiens, who had goals by Louis Berlinguette and Newsy Lalonde. St. Pats goalie Ivan Mitchell, also known as Mike, outdueled Canadiens' Georges Vezina.

Babe Dye scored twice for the Toronto St. Patricks on Dec. 17, 1921 in the franchise's first NHL season-opener in which the future Maple Leafs faced the Montreal Canadiens.

It was a remarkable comeback for Mitchell, who figuratively had returned from the dead; two years earlier, a Canadian newspaper reported that he had been killed in World War I.

The ferocious battle saw each team assessed 26 penalty minutes in "a clean cut victory for the green and white clad men who outskated and outgamed their opponents from gong to gong," the Canadian Press reported.

The Canadiens, the story continued, were "short on condition but long on hitting high." Both Dye and Denneny were sliced by high sticks, the latter even stretchered off the rink in the second period -- he would return -- after he'd been "skidded on his ear into the goal posts in retaliation for a smash across the arms he had given Lalonde at the other end just thirty seconds earlier."

The Canadiens-Maple Leafs rivalry has always been spirited. Here, the teams scrap during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on April 12, 1960 at Maple Leaf Gardens, two photographers having jumped onto the rink to capture the action. The Canadiens would win the Stanley Cup, their fifth in a row, with a four-game sweep.

Things got spicy again in the third period, Denneny and Lalonde exchanging words as another injured player hobbled off the ice.

"Lalonde said something that Denneny didn't like," the game report read. "The Toronto player immediately walloped the great Newsy but was ruled off for the rest of the game and Lalonde got three minutes."

The Canadiens and Maple Leafs will have at least 83 more games to play this season, 30 other opponents on their schedules. But on Tuesday, they won't be looking past the flames of a rivalry crackling anew, the ghosts of Babe and Newsy in the rafters of Scotiabank Arena when the NHL's oldest teams lock up again.

Top photo: Scotiabank Arena on Oct. 8, 2025 at the start of the season-opener between the Toronto Maple Leafs and visiting Montreal Canadiens.