Leaf notes: Coach Craig Berube’s first camp sure to be a busy one

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Who goes from Craig’s list to the Maple Leafs’ opening night lineup?

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After weeks of interviewing players, observing their summer skates and workouts, monitoring rookie camp and building his support staff, new coach Craig Berube gets hands-on with his roster starting Wednesday as training camp opens with medicals. The first on-ice session is Thursday and a six-game exhibition schedule begins Sunday at home against Ottawa.

The club was withholding its final count of goaltenders, defencemen and forwards, both returning players, newcomers, juniors and free agents, until early Wednesday. There is natural concern about the injuries suffered by 2024’s first-round Ben Danford last week (upper body) and last year’s camp surprise Fraser Minten (lower body). There will hopefully be some clarification on defenceman Jani Hakanpaa’s timetable to work through a slow-healing knee injury.

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Not that he’s an immediate threat to the projected goaltender tandem of Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll, but Matt Murray will start this camp a full year after bilateral hip surgery.

The club announced late Tuesday it was adding 30-year-old goalie Jon Gillies on a PTO. The 30-year-old 6-foot-6 former third-round pick of the Calgary Flames in 2012 played 12 games there up to 2018, with no more NHL appearance until ’21-22 with St. Louis and New Jersey and three games two seasons ago with Columbus.

At least six veteran NHLers join the Leafs camp, the biggest influx on general manager Brad Treliving’s re-jigged defence with Chris Tanev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Hakanpaa. Left winger Max Pacioretty and centre/winger Steven Lorentz are on PTO contracts, though Pacioretty is expected to get a spot after the Leafs shave about a million dollars in cap space by opening night, Oct. 9 in Montreal.

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Ekman-Larsson, Stolarz and Lorentz all come from the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, the most the Leafs have imported from a title holder in recent camp memory.

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ACTION ON THE AIRWAVES

The Leafs revealed their television schedule on Tuesday, with 36 of 82 games featured nationally on Sportsnet and six on Amazon Prime Video as part of its new Monday night deal with the National Hockey League.

Sportsnet Ontario also takes 14 regional contests in a split with TSN, which gets 26. The two major networks will also handle the club’s six pre-season matches and are once more dividing all the radio between The Fan 590 and TSN 1050. It’s not expected the radio crew, Joe Bowen and analyst Jim Ralph, will travel until at least playoff time.

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LOOSE LEAFS

Two areas the Leafs will work on improving at camp are team defence (they were 21st with 3.88 goals-against per game in the last regular season) and special teams. Their penalty kill ranked 23rd in the league and though they’re loaded with offence their hot regular season power play fizzled in the playoffs, going 1-for-21 against the Bruins … Former captain Darryl Sittler, who sits just 21 goals ahead of hard-charging Auston Matthews for second in Leafs history with 389, turns 74 on Wednesday … As the Cold War between the Canadian Hockey League and American junior-aged players continues to thaw, the international ‘Prospects Challenge’ has been announced. The top 2025 draft-eligible CHLers will play the U.S. National Development Program’s best Nov. 26 at Budweiser Gardens in London and the next night at Tribute Communities Centre in Oshawa.
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