With the first preseason games this weekend, the training camp Leafs have to get ready fast to play some fake hockey.

Toronto Maple Leafs Training Camp Roster 2023
The Leafs have announced their training camp roster.

If you check out that roster, you will find two playing groups of mostly NHL players that can form the core of a game roster. Group C is mostly AHLers who might get brought onto one of the other rosters now and again, but this is a serious business camp, and the biggest difference between Kyle Dubas and Brad Treliving is that in his media availability yesterday, Treliving was very upfront about the lack of jobs on the Leafs roster.

You can watch those recorded videos here:

Media Availability from Training Camp
Recorded video of training camp media interviews.

Some interesting things:

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The Wasserman CEO joins Matt to discuss his transition into the entertainment business and his vision for the 2028 L.A. Olympics

Some preliminary results on that experiment in power plays that don't end in a goal:

Power Play Scoring Boosted By CHL Rule Changes
The Champions Hockey League instituted a handful of rule changes prior to the start of the 2023-24 season, all aimed at increasing scoring. Nearly 50 games into the season, it looks like those…

Okay, and now I've hit that moment, as happens so often where tweets won't embed, so not trying.

As we enter training camp the desire to get your attention with stories about William Nylander and Elias Pettersson unsigned after this year, Steven Stamkos decided to do some negotiating in the media:

Tampa Bay Lightning plan to shelve talks with ‘disappointed’ Steven Stamkos until after season | TSN
Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Julien BriseBois said it would be great if Stamkos could spend his entire career with the team but indicated there won’t be any talks until after the season.

Which means that the Nylander circus has to change to constant chatter about him playing centre. Both Treliving and Sheldon Keefe were at pains to talk up Nylander yesterday (videos linked above) and they also both talked about this centre playing business – a feature of training camp year after year. Goldfish memories in hockey means it's all new and controversial again. Listen to Keefe and decide if this is going to last into October.

The view from America on the start of training camp:

Lingering questions for all 32 NHL teams as preseason begins: Goaltending, lineup, injuries
How big of an impact will Erik Karlsson have in Pittsburgh? Could the Jets and Capitals make more trades? Which teams are ready to level up?

And that's enough to be getting on with.