NHL preseason opening weekend: Canadiens sweep Maple Leafs split-squad games on Gavin McKenna’s debut, Brady Tkachuk scores twice in Panthers bow and Beckett Sennecke nets hat trick for Ducks

The 2026-27 NHL preseason opened over the weekend of September 19-20 with 14 games, headlined by the Toronto Maple Leafs debut of 2026 No. 1 draft pick Gavin McKenna. McKenna logged 23:39 of ice time with three shots on goal and a blocked shot, but the Montreal Canadiens won 4-1 at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday as Phillip Danault scored twice and Maksymilian Szuber and Samuel Poulin also found the net. Darren Raddysh and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky both made their Toronto debuts.

Montreal completed a split-squad sweep at Bell Centre, where Cole Caufield scored 38 seconds into overtime for a 4-3 win. Lane Hutson had a goal and two assists, with Juraj Slafkovsky and Ivan Demidov also scoring. In Edmonton, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl each had a goal and an assist playing together under new head coach Mike Babcock as the Oilers beat the Winnipeg Jets 5-2; Evan Bouchard recorded four assists and Ryan Shea marked his Oilers debut with a goal and two assists.

Saturday’s other results saw the Dallas Stars edge the St. Louis Blues 2-1 on Jack Becker’s late second-period breakaway goal, the Minnesota Wild beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 on Tyler Pitlick’s overtime winner, the Vegas Golden Knights defeat the Los Angeles Kings 4-2 with two third-period goals from Jackson Hallum, and the Seattle Kraken beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-2.

On Sunday, Brady Tkachuk had two goals and an assist in his first appearance for the Florida Panthers, who beat the Carolina Hurricanes 6-3 with Cole Reinhardt also scoring twice and Niko Mikkola contributing a goal and two assists. Beckett Sennecke scored a hat trick and Tristan Luneau had a goal and two assists as the Anaheim Ducks beat the San Jose Sharks 6-2, while Victor Hedman returned to the Tampa Bay Lightning lineup for the first time since a personal leave that began on March 19, playing 19:13 in a 2-1 win over the Nashville Predators in which Ilya Mikheyev scored on his Lightning debut.

Elsewhere on Sunday, Connor Brown’s third-period breakaway goal gave the New Jersey Devils a 2-1 win over the New York Islanders, with David Rittich making 23 saves against his former team and Vitek Vanecek stopping 20 on his Islanders debut. Charlie McAvoy tied the game with 1:43 left before the Boston Bruins beat the Washington Capitals 3-2 in a shootout, the Colorado Avalanche beat the Utah Mammoth 4-1 with goals from Brock Nelson and Gavin Brindley, and the Kraken made it two wins in two days by beating the Calgary Flames 4-2. The preseason runs through Saturday, September 26.