Maple Leafs Training Camp Lines: Roslovic With Matthews, McKenna With Tavares

Hiller's first set of Maple Leafs training camp lines

The first Maple Leafs training camp lines of the Jim Hiller era went up on Thursday, and they answered two questions the club had refused to answer all summer. Jack Roslovic opened on the right side of Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies. Gavin McKenna opened on the left side of John Tavares and William Nylander. Neither placement was leaked, hinted at, or walked into a microphone in advance. Hiller simply put the sheets up and ran the practice.

The full group, as skated at the first on-ice session: Knies-Matthews-Roslovic, McKenna-Tavares-Nylander, Paul-Sissons-Cowan, and Duhaime-Blueger-Lorentz, with Dakota Joshua skating as an extra. On defence it was Jake McCabe with Chris Tanev, Oliver Ekman-Larsson with Darren Raddysh, Emil Andrae with Ben Danford, and Troy Stecher with PTO invitee Nick Blankenburg. Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz split the crease.

Day one line rushes are not a depth chart. They are, however, the clearest statement a new coach makes before he has coached a game, and this one was unusually forward. Toronto did not hide its 18-year-old first overall pick on a fourth line to "let him breathe." It put him between two of the three most productive offensive players on the roster and let the rest of the league watch.

McKenna on the Tavares line is the headline, and the tell

There had been a real argument inside the Toronto media market that McKenna would open in a sheltered checking role — low minutes, easy zone starts, a soft landing for a teenager facing an 84-game schedule. Hiller went the other way. McKenna's first NHL practice came on a line with a former Art Ross runner-up at centre and a perennial 40-goal winger on the other side.

The reviews were immediate. Hiller described watching McKenna dance away from pressure and deliver a backhand saucer pass into space, the kind of play, he told reporters, that makes you stop and register the level. Tavares called the playmaking elite and pointed to McKenna's ability to manufacture something out of nothing when he appears to have no time or room. Nylander, who is not generally in the business of overselling linemates, called the addition a game-changer and said he was excited to start there.

McKenna's own read was more measured. He said it felt good that the staff had confidence in him, described Tavares as a workhorse and Nylander as skilled, and said his job was to play his game rather than change anything. That is close to the ideal answer from an 18-year-old, and it lines up with what Hiller said earlier in the week about McKenna showing the staff where he fits rather than being handed a role.

Roslovic gets the Matthews assignment nobody else has held

The Matthews right wing job has been the most unstable position on the roster since Mitch Marner left. Roslovic, signed to a two-year, $8 million contract on July 1 that carries a $4 million cap hit, is the first honest attempt at solving it with a right-shot forward who can actually skate with Matthews.

The history helps. Roslovic and Matthews were teammates at the U.S. National Team Development Program more than a decade ago, and both have spoken openly since the signing about the connection. History does not generate scoring chances, but it does shorten the runway on a line that cannot afford a month of feeling each other out.

What Roslovic brings is straightforward: speed, a right-handed shot, and enough finish to matter. He has scored 20 or more goals in three of the last five seasons, including each of the last two, and NHL Edge tracking placed him in the 93rd percentile league-wide for speed bursts above 20 miles per hour last season. Knies on the left, Matthews in the middle, Roslovic on the right is a line built to get up ice fast and shoot.

The third line is the most interesting construction on the sheet

Paul-Sissons-Cowan is not a fourth line dressed up. Nick Paul arrived from Tampa Bay in July — Toronto sent Dennis Hildeby, a 2027 fourth-round pick and a 2028 third-round pick, and took on the remaining three years of Paul's contract at a $3.15 million cap hit. Colton Sissons signed this summer. Easton Cowan is coming off a rookie year and a Calder Cup run with the Marlies.

Hiller described that trio as a group that should be able to handle other teams' best players while still pushing offensively — a matchup line with teeth rather than a pure shutdown unit. That is a meaningful distinction for a team that surrendered far too much at five-on-five last season. If it works, Toronto can run McKenna's line and Matthews' line against softer matchups for long stretches.

Cowan, for what it is worth, was the player Hiller singled out as the day's best. He called Cowan a puck hound, said he was everywhere, and framed the skill as secondary to the pursuit. That is a coach telling a 21-year-old exactly how to earn minutes.

The blue line pairings contained the one real surprise

McCabe-Tanev is the reunion everyone expected, and it comes with the added relief that Tanev was cleared in time for day one after a summer of uncertainty. The surprise was the second pair: Ekman-Larsson with Raddysh rather than McCabe with Raddysh, which had been the consensus projection through late summer.

Morgan Rielly was not on the ice. He is dealing with a viral condition that the club does not expect to cost him opening night, but in a camp this short every missed day matters. Blankenburg, in on a PTO, skated with Stecher on the fourth pair with the main group — a reasonable place to be for a player fighting for the last job on a blue line that is already carrying 25 defencemen through camp.

What the sheet does not settle

Four things stayed open. Joshua skating as an extra while Steven Lorentz drew into the fourth line is a small signal about who is currently ahead in a very tight bottom-six race. Nobody has been named the starter in goal on the ice, even though the front office has already said out loud that Stolarz is the starter. The power play units were not the story of the day and will be. And the third defence pair remains genuinely unresolved.

There is also the matter of how long any of this survives contact. Hiller has coached NHL games and knows what day one line rushes are worth. The internal framing around Roslovic appears to be closer to an experiment than a coronation — put him there, see what it looks like against real opposition, and adjust. That is the correct posture. It is also why Saturday matters more than Thursday did.

What's next

Toronto opens the preseason on Saturday with split-squad games against Montreal, one at Scotiabank Arena and one at the Bell Centre. Under the new CBA the exhibition schedule has been trimmed to four games, which means the Maple Leafs training camp lines you saw Thursday get roughly four live looks before the regular season opens against the Canadiens on September 29 — the first night of an 84-game schedule. There is no version of this camp with a long evaluation window. Watch which combinations Hiller protects when the games count for nothing, because those are the ones he actually believes in.