Maple Leafs, Canadiens get things started again in season opener

The Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs, their century-old rolling-boil rivalry spilling beyond the rink into culture and language, will play on Wednesday at Bell Centre in Montreal in their season opener.

For the 20th time since 1921-22, the two oldest teams in the NHL will square off in a schedule-opening game for each one. Twelve of those 19 games to date have been on the watch of Steve Hatze Petros, the NHL executive vice president, scheduling and broadcast business, who since 1990 has been responsible for the League's schedule - 1,312 games this season.
The Maple Leafs versus the Canadiens is a natural for the NHL and for Sportsnet and TVA, which will carry the game nationally in Canada in English and French (7 p.m. ET; SN, TVAS, ESPN+, SN NOW).

Steve Hatze Petros, the NHL's Executive Vice-President, Scheduling and Broadcast Business, in his Montreal office on Oct. 11 with an old-school reminder of the 1990-91 League schedule, the first he drew up on a board similar to this one. Tanika Phillips-Edwards, NHL
"Typically it's one of our highest-rated games in Canada so you want to start off with a bang," Hatze Petros said Tuesday from his Montreal office. "The biggest ratings we get (in Canada) are from the two biggest markets in English and French.
"Every time Toronto has seemed to have a very weak team and Montreal has had a strong team, Toronto could beat them in that first game. Now, we go into the season with Toronto being a Cup contender and Montreal in its building phase, and Montreal could still beat them because they play them hard."
The Maple Leafs, the home team for 13 of the 19 previous games, is 12-6-0-1 against the Canadiens' 7-10-0-2, outscoring them, 57-52. The Maple Leafs have had two season-opening win streaks of three games and one of four against the Canadiens, riding a three-game streak into Bell Centre on Wednesday. Montreal has won three in a row one time, a 36-year span from 1924 to 1960.
Twice the Canadiens have won with Jacques Plante shutouts at the Forum - 2-0 in 1955, Canadiens center Henri Richard playing his first professional game, then 5-0 in 1960, the pro debut of Toronto center Dave Keon. The Maple Leafs earned a shutout of their own in 2011, James Reimer stopping all 32 shots he faced in a 2-0 win on home ice.

Goalie Jacques Plante grabs a puck out of the air in front of Toronto's Dick Duff, Canadiens defenceman Doug Harvey nearby. Plante blanked the Maple Leafs in 1955 and 1960 season-opening games for both teams. Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Nine of the 19 games have been decided by one goal; the widest margin of victory came in 1924, a 7-1 home-ice win for the Canadiens.
A little more number-crunching:
This will be the 382nd regular-season game between the Canadiens and Maple Leafs in Montreal, the home team holding a 217-113-43-8 edge.
Eight of the top 10 scorers in the 19 season-openers between the teams are Maple Leafs, led by Toronto defenseman Dion Phaneuf's seven points (two goals, five assists) in six games played between 2010-15. Only Canadiens forwards Tomas Plekanec (two goals, three assists) in eight games between 2009-18, ranking third, and Aurel Joliat (three goals, one assist) in two games from 1923-24, ranking ninth, make the list.

The seven points of Dion Phaneuf (left) leads all players. Dave Maley (right) scored his first career NHL goal in the 1986-87 Canadiens-Maple Leafs season-opening game. Getty Images
Eight players have scored their first NHL career points in these 19 games, all with an assist except for Montreal rookie David Maley, whose first NHL goal came on Oct. 9, 1986 in a 7-4 loss.
Thirteen different goalies have seen action, the nine games of Montreal's Carey Price (3-4-0-2) between 2009-21 by far the most. Closest to him: the three of Canadiens legend Georges Vezina between 1921-24, and the two each of Reimer, Frederik Andersen and John Ross Roach of Toronto and Montreal's Plante and Patrick Roy.
It's been 100 years, nine months and 25 days since the Canadiens and Maple Leafs - then called the Toronto St. Patricks - first met to open their NHL seasons on Dec. 17, 1921.

Canadiens' Carey Price in action against the Maple Leafs on Oct. 1, 2009, his first of nine career games to begin a season against Toronto.
Corb Denneny and Babe Dye each scored twice with Ken Randall adding another 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. The native of Winnipeg was on loan to Toronto from the Hamilton Tigers, filling in for the injured Roach, and won in his pro hockey debut.
It was a whale of a 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 at Mutual Street Arena 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 Stanley Cup-bound Toronto St. Patricks of 1921-22 included Dec. 17, 1921 goal-scorers Babe Dye (seated, fifth from left) and Corb Denneny (standing, fourth from left). Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
The Canadiens, the story continued, were "short on condition but long on hitting high." Dye and Denneny were each 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."
Things got spicy again in the third period, Denneny and Lalonde exchanging words while 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."
That was seven decades before Hatze Petros began drawing up the NHL schedule. A native Montrealer who divides his time between the city and NHL offices in New York, he is happy to once again bring the two storied rivals together to begin their 2022-23 schedules.
"You can argue that the Bruins against the Canadiens is big in Montreal," he said. "But if Toronto wasn't playing Montreal to begin the season, a lot of you (media) guys would be saying, 'What happened? How come? It's been happening forever.' We've created a tradition with this and that's what our television rightsholders want."

Canadiens' Georges Vezina was on the losing end of the 1921 game. At right, Toronto's Turk Broda with his 1940-41 Vezina Trophy. James Rice (left), Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame
Hatze Petros describes his relationship with his hometown Canadiens as "arm's length because I don't want anyone to believe that because I'm a Montrealer, they get a preferred schedule.
"When you've grown up in Montreal in the 1960s and '70s and the Canadiens were winning the Stanley Cup every 15 minutes, it was hard not to be a Habs fan, right? All those great and exciting teams. But over my 38 years with the League, you see things differently."
So Hatze Petros will be a game-time decision on Wednesday, maybe dropping into Bell Centre for one period and a visit to the media gallery. Like a native Montrealer, he will dress his legendary hot dogs with just a little mustard, showing them the respect they deserve.
"I'll take a couple," he said, laughing, "and I'm good to go."
Stuart McComish, NHL Manager, Statistics and Research, contributed to this report