Saturday's FTB: The Leafs pre-season begins

It was only a few days ago I looked out of the windows of my apartment and saw something shocking. Leaves starting to change colour on the trees. This is across the lane-way from my building where there's an abandoned event centre that went bankrupt and has not been touched at all now for three years.

The indoor portion is still intact, but it had an outdoor portion with a naturalised space with trees including a tree-house, and even a fake stream they made, plus a very large patio where drunken wedding guests would annoy me by screaming at 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday night.

Since the bankruptcy, the outdoor space has turned into a sort of urban wildlife refuge. There are raccoons, naturally, it's Toronto, but it also supports a population of skunks, feral cats, some rats, and probably 50 squirrels who are constantly fighting over the small territory betrothed to them by neglect. I have heard many an all out raccoon brawl in the middle of the night, at least I assume that's what it was, though maybe they were up to something more... fun, but nothing is worse than on my early morning trips to work finding a partially-eaten yet still alive pigeon.

Anyway, now that I've put that horrifying image of the pigeon in your minds, I am looking out the window today and see the giant trees there, about six floors high, and the now wildly overgrown shrubs starting to change colour. They aren't quite there yet, but the leaves of the trees are turning yellow, the shrubs are staring to shed their leaves too.

Yes, that was a wildly melodramatic way to begin today's FTB, but hey, I have to give you something because today is a very big day, those trees starting to change the colour of their leaves can mean only one thing: it's hockey pre-season!

And not only do we get one game, we get two, and they're at the same time! The split-squad games will be in both Toronto and Montreal, both starting at 7:00 p.m. ET. The Toronto game which will feature Gavin McKenna will be broadcast on TSN. The game in Montreal will be on Sportsnet. Get ready for a wild night.

First, we already got some scrimmage action yesterday.

Bobrovsky stops Roslovic & earns head tap from Tanev @TSN_Sports pic.twitter.com/jtdCXU3t1Q
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) September 18, 2026

And some interviews.

Other News

The AHL is now adding offside video reviews directed by a coach's challenge. The penalty for failing your first challenge is a minor penalty. It escalates with further failed challenges.

Malgin?

Sometimes the simplest recipes are the best, though I would note you don't just want to tomatoes "ripe" here, get them over ripe, and if you don't have crème fraîche, mix some a small amount of cream with lemon juice and add some hot Dijon mustard is good too. Peak end-of-summer tomatoes on toast can't be beat.

Meanwhile the Washington Capitals first round draft pick from 2025 says "hold my beer." He is 19 years old and had never eaten a tomato in his life, though it also sounds like he should have been drafted by the Red Wings.

Not only did Lynden Lakovic try asparagus and cauliflower for the first time at Pierre-Luc Dubois' house, but it was also his first time trying *tomatoes*.

On the stranger end of things, he said octopus was "really good."
— Katie Adler (@katieEadler) September 18, 2026