With no time to spare, the split between the team and the minor-leaguers is immediate.

Courtesy of Kevin McGran on Twitter, the full list of practice groups and their numbers!

As expected Morgan Rielly is not participating yet. Nick Blankenburg comes in on the team group. Ben Danford is also on the team roster, while Tinus Luc Koblar is on the other roster.

Both games this Saturday are at 7 pm, one on TSN, one on SN. Which will have which team is yet unknown.

Lines from the team group from David Alter:

Leafs line Group 1 Sept 17/26

Knies-Matthews-Roslovic
McKenna-Tavares-Nylander
Paul-Sissons-Cowan
Duhaime-Blueger-Lorentz
Joshua

McCabe-Tanev
OEL-Raddysh
Andrae-Danford
Stecher-Blankenburg

Bobrovsky
Stolarz

The defence pairs are where the surprises are, but first the forwards. The McKenna on the Tavares line idea is how I think he will break into the top six. The option is there to swap him with Nick Paul or Easton Cowan if needed. I'm intrigued that Steven Lorentz is in ahead of Dakota Joshua, given the alleged chemistry Joshua has with Teddy Blueger. But Joshua's problem is skating speed, and Duhaime is fast while Bleuger is only a bit average. That might be the factor being considered.

I have felt that with these 13 forwards, Joshua is somewhat the odd man out whose role has been usurped, and who could be replaced with someone from the Marlies.

The defence is not how I expected it. First of all, with Morgan Rielly reportedly ill, this does not look like they've slotted someone into a spot that will be his. He's not playing with Darren Raddysh, I wouldn't think, and if he's now on the third pair, well maybe that would move Emil Andrae over, so Ben Danford is getting his chance with Rielly out.

McCabe-Tanev is a solid pair that plays defence and not much else. That second pair is very, very interesting. Oliver Ekman-Larsson has some of the archetype-busting characteristics of Raddysh, namely that they don't play how they look. Raddysh looks like a tough guy defence first defender, and he is not. He is not a cycle-joining dwinger in the offensive zone like Rielly either. Ekman-Larsson is a lot better defensively than his reputation has it, and while he's a puck-mover, he's not quite the prototype of modern-puck-moving Swedish defender. He's a dirty and nasty guy with a temper for a start. Our dirty and nasty guy, mind you.

As Alter reports, some options are appearing already in lines that look like this:

And get Joshua in the mix as well as see Nick Paul have a go at centre.

I will update this post later with the Marlies lines when they get posted.

Training Camp