Predicting the Toronto Maple Leafs' opening night roster

With the Maple Leafs' regular season kicking off on Tuesday, HockeyPatrol is here to break down the team's opening night roster and where they may line up.

Preseason games are done, the hype is growing, and the Toronto Maple Leafs start their 2026-27 NHL season in only three short days. We've waited all summer to see how the team is going to bounce back after a tough 2025-26 season, and there's a lot of hope that things will turn around.

Gavin McKenna is bringing immense excitement to the season, Auston Matthews is looking like his former 60-goal self, and the additions to the bottom-six along with Sergei Bobrovsky have made the team much more consistent overall.

Projecting your 2026-27 Toronto Maple Leafs lineup

So with that being said, there are still some questions about the roster, and we are going to break things down as best we can for you wonderful fans. Here's a look at what your 2026-27 Toronto Maple Leafs could look like in only a few days:

Forwards:

Knies -- Matthews -- Roslovic
McKenna -- Tavares -- Nylander
Groulx* -- Sissons -- Cowan
Duhaime -- Blueger -- MacEwen

Paul
Joshua

Defence:

Rielly -- Raddysh
McCabe -- Tanev
Ekman-Larsson -- Stecher

Andrae
Blankenburg**

Goalies:

Bobrovsky
Stolarz

*Placeholder for Nick Paul
**Expected to sign one-year contract

LTIR: Max Domi (Indefinitely)

How the lineup breaks down

The top-six is pretty much cemented now, and McKenna has already shown some impressive chemistry (and confidence) alongside John Tavares. Roslovic and Matthews have shown some of their old chemistry as well, and William Nylander is showing a much more aggressive side.

The bottom-six is missing Nick Paul due to an unidentified injury and Dakota Joshua may not be ready for the start of the season, but Groulx had a solid preseason meanwhile MacEwen and Duhaime can step up in the interim.

Toronto's defence is the big question mark, as it'll be interesting to see how the Rielly/Raddysh pairing fares for the length of the season, with Chris Tanev's health also a pressing concern. He seems heathy, but as we saw last year, that can collapse in an instant.

It should also be noted that the Maple Leafs will be without Max Domi for an undetermined amount of time as he continues to recover from complications suffered after offseason surgery.

Goaltending is going to again be a focal point but the addition of Bobrovsky should be able to at least help ease the workload on Stolarz and hopefully rekindle that chemistry that led them to a Stanley Cup in 2023-24.

Jim Hiller and his new coaching staff are going to have their hands full when it comes to maximizing the potential of the roster in front of them, and while it's going to take some time for them to truly gel together, there's hope.

And if you were to ask Gavin McKenna, he thinks that this really could be the year. If that's not sheer optimism, then nothing is.

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