Toronto Marlies Opening Weekend: Brisson Scores Twice in Split

Toronto Marlies split their opening weekend

The Toronto Marlies opened their defence of the Calder Cup with a split. They lost 3-1 in Rochester on Friday, Oct. 2, then beat the Hamilton Hammers 5-3 in their home opener at Coca-Cola Coliseum on Saturday, Oct. 3. They sit at 1-1-0 after two nights, which is about what you would expect from a roster that was still being put together five days before the season started.

The results matter less than who produced them. Half of the goals this weekend came from veterans the Maple Leafs sent down through waivers at the end of training camp. The prospects who are supposed to be the point of this season showed flashes, but they did not drive the offence. That is the tension head coach Steve Sullivan was always going to face, and it showed up right away.

Here are the two results.

DateOpponentResultShots (TOR-OPP)Marlies goaltenderMarlies scorersOct. 2at Rochester AmericansL 3-136-20Samuel Hlavaj, 17 savesHenrik RybinskiOct. 3vs. Hamilton HammersW 5-335-27Artur Akhtyamov, 24 savesBrendan Brisson (2), Noah Chadwick, Landon Sim, Logan Shaw

Friday in Rochester: 36 shots, one goal

The opener at Blue Cross Arena was a game Toronto controlled and lost. The Marlies outshot the Americans 36-20 and had the better of the first period, but Rochester goaltender Matthew Villalta made 35 saves in his Amerks debut and carried a shutout into the final two minutes.

The game turned in the second period, when the Marlies started taking penalties. Riley Fiddler-Schultz opened the scoring in the second, rookie Jake Richard added a second goal, and veteran Conor Sheary made it 3-0 in the third. Henrik Rybinski broke the shutout on the power play at 18:09 of the third period, set up by Luke Haymes and Vinni Lettieri.

Hlavaj stopped 17 of 20 shots. That is not a save percentage anyone will frame, but on 20 shots against, three goals had more to do with the penalties than with the goaltender. The bigger concern was finishing. A team that loses a 36-20 shot battle 3-1 is either unlucky or not getting to the dangerous areas, and opening nights usually involve a bit of both.

Saturday's home opener: four goals in the first period

Saturday's game against Hamilton was the other way round. The Marlies scored four times in the first period: Brendan Brisson twice, plus Noah Chadwick and Landon Sim. Logan Shaw made it 5-0 in the opening minute of the second. It was the best period of Toronto's young season, and it came against an expansion-style opponent.

The Hammers are the New York Islanders' new AHL affiliate. The franchise moved from Bridgeport over the summer and now plays at the renovated TD Coliseum in Hamilton, roughly 70 kilometres down the QEW. That makes it the Marlies' closest rival, and the two clubs will see a lot of each other. Hamilton came back with goals from Pierre Engvall and Ethan Bear in the second period and scored again in the third, but it never got closer than two. Josh Kotai, making his first professional start, made 30 saves on 35 shots in Hamilton's first loss of the season.

Akhtyamov stopped 24 of 27 in his first start since winning the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as playoff MVP. He went 15-7 with a .923 save percentage and two shutouts in the Calder Cup run.

The waiver veterans did the scoring

Half of Toronto's six goals this weekend came from players the Maple Leafs placed on waivers on Sept. 24. We wrote at the time, in our Marlies season-opener preview, that the eight-player waiver batch would make the AHL roster deeper and make the development mandate harder. The first weekend proved both.

• Brendan Brisson scored twice on Saturday. He was the 29th overall pick by Vegas in 2020, went to the New York Rangers in the Reilly Smith trade in March 2025, and signed a one-year, two-way deal with Toronto in September after the Rangers did not qualify him. He scored 19 goals and 37 points in 66 games for Hartford last season. On a two-way contract with an $850,000 NHL cap hit, he is the kind of call-up the Leafs could make with little cap risk if injuries pile up.
• Henrik Rybinski scored Toronto's only goal in Rochester, on the power play.
• Vinni Lettieri picked up an assist on Rybinski's goal.

None of this is a problem in itself. Veterans who can score make an AHL team competitive, and a competitive team is a better place to develop than a losing one. It only becomes a problem if their minutes come out of the prospects' share. That is Sullivan's job to balance, and it is the reason we argued last month that the Marlies should treat this as a development year rather than a repeat bid.

Prospects: Danford, Chadwick, Haymes and Sim

The young players were not invisible. Here is how the prospects to watch fared.

Ben Danford, Toronto's first-round pick in 2024, was among the Marlies' better players in Rochester. Paired with Marshall Rifai, he was active at both ends and created two Grade-A chances, according to Maple Leafs Hot Stove's game review. He did not register a point, but for a 20-year-old defenceman in his first full professional season, the quality of his decisions matters more than his point total. He is the highest-ceiling defenceman in the organization, and with the Leafs' NHL blue line as old as it is, his timeline matters.

Noah Chadwick, a 2023 sixth-round pick, scored on Saturday. He is a left-shot defenceman who put up 23 points in 68 games in his first pro season, and his skating has been his calling card. Getting a goal from the back end in the opener is a good sign for his second pro season.

Luke Haymes picked up an assist on the power-play goal in Rochester after spending his first pro season with the Marlies last year. He has been playing centre in the top six of the projected lineup, a test of whether he can run a line rather than ride along on one.

Landon Sim, an energy forward who became a fan favourite last season, scored in the four-goal first period on Saturday. He is not a top prospect, but he is the type of player who keeps his spot in the lineup because coaches trust him.

The goaltending split, and why it matters upstairs

Sullivan split the weekend between Hlavaj and Akhtyamov, and that is likely to continue. Neither is going to the NHL soon under normal circumstances: Toronto's tandem is Sergei Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz, and we covered Hlavaj's place in the organization in our look at the Leafs' fourth goalie. But the Maple Leafs traded Joseph Woll to Philadelphia in June, and the goalie they took back from Columbus in the Knies trade, Elvis Merzlikins, is on long-term injured reserve. That leaves the Marlies tandem as Toronto's real depth if one of the NHL goalies gets hurt.

Akhtyamov is the one the organization has invested in. He signed a three-year extension in March 2026 at a $900,000 average annual value, two-way this season and one-way in 2027-28 and 2028-29. That structure says the Leafs see him as an NHL backup within two years. A good regular season behind a Butterfield Trophy would put him at the front of that queue.

What's next for the Marlies

Toronto goes back-to-back against the same opponent next weekend, visiting Hamilton on Friday, Oct. 9 and again on Sunday, Oct. 11. It then plays a home-and-home with the Belleville Senators on Oct. 17 and 18. Six of Toronto's first ten games are against Hamilton or Belleville, so the Marlies' early standing in the North Division will be decided mostly by those two rivals.

Keep an eye on the Maple Leafs' injury list as well. Max Domi and Dakota Joshua are on long-term injured reserve, and the Leafs are carrying 13 forwards, so any call-up has to fit inside their LTIR math. When Toronto needs a forward, the call goes to the Coliseum, and players like Brisson are making their case early. For the full NHL roster picture, see our Maple Leafs players page.