A pair of rematches from last spring's playoffs and the latest skirmish in the Battle of Ontario are on tap Wednesday night as the NHL opens its 2006-07 season with three games.
One of hockey's most bitter rivalries will unveil a different look as the Ottawa Senators travel to Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs (7:30 p.m. ET).
The Leafs have a new coach (Paul Maurice, called up from the team's AHL affiliate to replace Pat Quinn) and a new starting goaltender (Andrew Raycroft, acquired from the Boston Bruins in the off-season).
Free-agent acquisition Hal Gill, right, will be one of the Maple Leafs charged with stopping the Senators' Daniel Alfredsson.
(Dave Sandford/Getty Images)
Free agent acquisitions Michael Peca, Pavel Kubina and Hal Gill will also see their first action for the Leafs, who are looking to return to the playoffs after finishing ninth in the Eastern Conference last season.
Following another early playoff exit, the Ottawa Senators also come into the new season sporting a fresh look. Gone are defenceman Zdeno Chara and forwards Martin Havlat and Brian Smolinski.
Veteran goalie Dominik Hasek, who sat out injured while top-seeded Ottawa fell to the Buffalo Sabres in the second round of last season's Eastern playoffs, was let go in the off-season. In his place is Martin Gerber, who left the Stanley Cup-champion Carolina Hurricanes to become the Senators' No. 1 netminder.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper plans to attend Wednesday's game in Toronto, where the Leafs won one of their four meetings with the Senators last season.
'Canes begin title defence
The Hurricanes will raise their 2006 Stanley Cup championship banner Wednesday night when they welcome the Sabres to Raleigh, N.C. (7 p.m. ET).
Carolina, which went from a non-playoff team to hoisting the Stanley Cup in one season, will defend their title with much the same roster that earned it the second-most points in the East last season.
That's not to say, though, that the winds of change didn't affect the Hurricanes in the off-season. Short-term rentals Mark Recchi and Doug Weight are gone, and Gerber's departure puts the No. 1 goalie job in the hands of Conn Smythe Trophy winner Cam Ward, who has yet to play a full NHL season.
Carolina will also have to make do for a while without forward Cory Stillman and defenceman Frantisek Kaberle, both of whom are recovering from shoulder surgery.
Buffalo, another of last season's surprise teams, extended Carolina to a seventh game in the Eastern final before falling to the eventual Cup winners amid a slew of injuries to its defence corps.
The Sabres lost one of those defencemen, shot-blocking wizard Jay McKee, to free agency, and signed the more offence-minded Jaroslav Spacek to take his spot. Key forwards J.P. Dumont and Mike Grier also inked contracts elsewhere, but Buffalo will otherwise ice essentially the same team that finished fourth in the conference last season.
Stars look for revenge on Avs
The final game of Wednesday's opening night sees Dallas travel to Colorado to take on the Avalanche, who dispatched the Stars in five games when the teams met in the first round of last season's playoffs.
Colorado lost power-play quarterback Rob Blake to the L.A. Kings in the off-season and dealt high-scoring Alex Tanguay to Calgary for defenceman Jordan Leopold. The Avalanche go into 2005-06 hoping for a renaissance by mercurial goalie Jose Theodore, who played inconsistently after being acquired from the Canadiens late last season.
Dallas bolstered its blue-line in the summer by acquiring Jaroslav Modry from Atlanta and Darryl Sydor from Tampa Bay. The Stars are also hoping the oft-injured Eric Lindros, signed to a one-year deal, can return to form, and that recently acquired centre Mike Ribeiro can reach the potential he failed to live up to in Montreal.
