IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE!

I am beside myself with happiness right now. The NHL season begins tonight, with the Toronto Maple Leafs traveling to Winnipeg to take on the Jets.

This marks the next instalment of Auston Matthews vs. Patrick “Draco Malfoy” Laine and, in what I think is a very underrated matchup, William Nylander vs. Nikolaj Ehlers, fresh off signing a 7 year, $42 million extension.

The resemblance is uncanny

The Jets core is relatively unchanged from last year – They added Steve Mason in an effort to solidify themselves in net and Dmitry Kulikov on the backend. Their young guns have gotten another year wiser and likely another year better. Laine showed last year he has the capability to be the league’s next big goal scorer a la Alex Ovechkin, while Mark Scheifele thrust himself into the conversation of top centres in the league.

Blake Wheeler will continue to fly under the radar as a points machine while Jacob Trouba will finally receive the top minutes he longed for during their contract negotiations last fall.

For the Maple Leafs, the roster is almost exactly as was expected. The only positions up for debate were the 4th line centre and 6th defenseman, and they’ve been filled by Eric Fehr and Andreas Borgman respectively. Zach Hyman will line up alongside Auston Matthews and William Nylander (as expected), while Patrick Marleau will suit up for a regular season game not wearing San Jose Sharks jersey. He’ll be playing with Nazem Kadri and Leo Komarov, his linemates throughout preseason.

This is going to be an extremely short post because I’m just way too excited for this season to begin, and I wanted to share that with you all. This is going to be a big year for the Maple Leafs; there will be highs and lows. Injuries are bound to happen (they got way too lucky last year), but the team finally has the depth that it isn’t a worry like it was in the past. My cautious optimism has morphed in to full blown Cup hopes and there’s no slowing this train. Time to hop on board and enjoy the ride!