History will be made tonight as the Auston Matthews era officially gets underway at the Toronto Maple Leafs’ home-away-from-home rink in Kanata.

Not only will this be Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner’s first game as Maple Leafs, tonight marks the beginning of the franchise’s centennial season. A deluge of Toronto media has arrived in the city for the day and buses of Leafs fans are invading the strip malls surrounding the Canadian Tire Centre in preparation for a momentous occasion in the [suburb outside the] nation’s capital.

This will be the first of four meetings between the teams this season. In the Phil Kessel era in Toronto, even if the Leafs were a bad team, you could always count on wins over Senators – Toronto won 21 of 31 games against Ottawa throughout Kessel’s Leaf career, with Phil contributing 18 goals and 39 points. It was 180-reverse with Kessel gone last season, as the Leafs lost all four meetings with Ottawa and gave up 17 goals in the process.

Sens and Leafs games this early in the season are typically high scoring affairs loosely played from the structure standpoint. The fact that neither team has been good defensively in a number of years, combined with the fact that it’s October hockey, has produced a lot of goals in the first meeting of the year between the two provincial rivals. Last season, in game #2 of the season, the Senators won a wild 5-4 game in a shootout. In 2014-15, the Leafs won 5-3 in the teams’ first meeting, and the year prior the Leafs also put up five against the Senators in a shootout win on the opening day of the 2013-14 season.

Given the emotion of the evening generated by the split-crowd atmosphere in the CTC, the nerves of the debuting youngsters on the team, and the history of high-scoring games between these two clubs, it will be a challenge for Mike Babcock to keep his team in the mindset to execute his systems properly, especially early on in the contest.

The Senators are a considerably more experienced club and are – as declared by their new General Manager, Pierre Dorion — in win-now mode with a new coach and a new top-six center on the roster in Derick Brassard. When healthy, the team has a top six forward group that matches up well with the many teams in the league, consisting of Mike Hoffman, who is entering the season on a new long-term contract and with a better relationship with his head coach, Kyle Turris, Mark Stone, Brassard, Bobby Ryan, and Clarke MacArthur.

There are question marks when it comes to the quality of their depth. With MacArthur concussed again and Curtis Lazar starting the season in Binghamton of the AHL, the team has Boucher-favourite Tom Pyatt (played in Switzerland for Boucher last season), Ryan Dzingel and Phil Varone among their top nine or 10 up front.

The Leafs don’t exactly win the argument when it comes to NHL proven-ness. They’re the youngest team in the league, although the inexperience resides among some of the most skilled members of the roster — William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, Nikita Zaitsev.

Throughout his NHL career, Guy Boucher has been known to run 11 forwards and 7 defencemen here and there, and we may see that from the Senators tonight. The team has kept 19-year-old defenceman Thomas Chabot on the roster for at least the first nine games and may dress him as their #7 on the blueline. Outside of Chabot, it’s a defence group that remains more or less the same following the acquisition of Dion Phaneuf last season. Cody Ceci has been signed to a bridge contract over the offseason, and the team is banking on improvement on the second-pairing with a full season of Phaneuf and Ceci together in behind Marc Methot and Erik Karlsson.

In net, we will hear more “Anderso(e)n” mentions than a viewing of The Matrix on the Sportsnet broadcast tonight. Craig Anderson enters the season at the age of 35, coming off a 60-game 2015-16 season in which he posted a respectable .916 save percentage while facing an inordinate number of shots — 1,915, second to only Henrik Lundqvist league-wide. Whether he could carry that kind of load again for the Senators at his age remains to be seen; they may need more starts from an improved Andrew Hammond in 2016-17. Frederik Andersen is looking to get his Leaf tenure started off on the right foot after shaking off some rust, to put it nicely, in preseason.

Much like Babcock, Boucher, since in arriving in Ottawa alongside associate coach Mark Crawford, has been preaching a game predicated on speed, quick transition, and ‘five-feet support’ all over the ice. Whether he’s got the lineup to execute the gameplan to his liking remains to be seen (Smith – Brassard – Ryan isn’t exactly a line built on speed, and neither is a fourth line with Chris Kelly and Chris Neil on it). Babcock’s got a young team that, for all of its question marks defensively, can certainly keep up with anyone in the league when it comes to pace of play. The challenge is in getting them adjusted and organized so that they’re playing with the puck enough and making use of their speed and skill through neutral ice and into the offensive zone.

Babcock won’t be able to fully control his matchups with last change, meaning some shifts against the Senators’ top talent will be in store for the ‘kid line’ of Auston Matthews, Zach Hyman and William Nylander, but Babcock will look to get Nazem Kadri’s unit as well as the Martin Marincin – Morgan Rielly pairing out against Mike Hoffman – Kyle Turris – Mark Stone whenever possible.

Enough words for now – Leafs hockey is back, and it’s younger and more genuinely exciting than at any time in recent franchise history.

Only 5 forwards & 4 defensemen playing for the Leafs tonight were in last year's opening lineup. 11 new faces. pic.twitter.com/pokj2blRI0 — platinum seat ghosts (@3rdPeriodSuits) October 12, 2016

Toronto Maple Leafs Projected Lines

Forwards

van Riemsdyk – Tyler Bozak – Mitch Marner

Milan Michalek – Nazem Kadri – Leo Komarov

Zach Hyman – Auston Matthews – William Nylander

Matt Martin – Peter Holland – Connor Brown

Scratched: Seth Griffith

Injured: Josh Leivo

Defencemen

Martin Marincin – Morgan Rielly

Jake Gardiner – Connor Carrick

Matt Hunwick – Nikita Zaitsev

Scratched: Roman Polak, Frank Corrado

Goaltenders

Starter: Frederik Andersen

Backup: Jhonas Enroth

Powerplay Units

according to Tuesday’s practice units per Mark Masters:

Leo Komarov

Auston Matthews – William Nylander – Milan Michalek

Nikita Zaitsev

James van Riemsdyk

Nazem Kadri – Tyler Bozak – Mitch Marner

Jake Gardiner

Ottawa Senators Projected Lines

Forwards

Mike Hoffman – Kyle Turris – Mark Stone

Zack Smith – Derick Brassard – Bobby Ryan

Phil Varone – Jean-Gabriel Pageau – Tom Pyatt

Ryan Dzingel – Chris Kelly – Chris Neil

Injured: Clarke MacArthur

Defencemen

Marc Methot – Erik Karlsson

Dion Phaneuf – Cody Ceci

Mark Borowiecki – Chris Wideman

Thomas Chabot

Goaltenders

Starter: Craig Anderson

Backup: Andrew Hammond

Maple Leafs Morning Skate: Mike Babcock