The countdown is on.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are just 74 days away from opening the 2026-27 season.

With the NHL releasing the full regular-season schedule on Thursday, Leafs Nation finally has some key dates to circle on the calendar.

That’s exactly where the conversation started on the latest summer edition of Leafs Morning Take. We spent most of the show breaking down the schedule, highlighting the biggest matchups, revenge games, homecomings, and everything else that stood out.

For the record, the NHL got it right this year as Mitch Marner will make his second visit to Toronto on a Saturday night. It should’ve been that way all along.

With that in mind, we shared our initial thoughts on the schedule. One thing that stood out to Rosie was the massive discrepancy in back-to-backs. The Canadiens have 19 games on the second half of a back-to-back, while the Leafs have just five. How does that happen?

We also touched on another front-office addition. Earlier this week, Toronto hired Jeremiah Crowe as Director of Player Personnel. The 40-year-old joins the Maple Leafs after serving as the Sabres’ Director of Pro Scouting.

After that, we combed through some of the schedule’s key dates. That led to a fun debate about how the NHL still doesn’t do a great job of building rivalries and capitalizing on its biggest storylines. Take Sergei Bobrovsky’s return to Sunrise, for example. It doesn’t happen until March 6. By then, Bobrovsky being a Maple Leaf will be old news. The league has to do a better job of putting these marquee matchups front and centre. Last season’s Marner revenge games were another missed opportunity. Instead of spreading them out, both meetings came during an eight-game stretch in January, by which point a lot of the buzz had already worn off.

Meantime, David Alter of The Hockey News stopped by to give his thoughts on the schedule. He shared his biggest takeaways, discussed the shortened training camp, weighed in on John Chayka’s offseason work, and offered his outlook for Toronto heading into the new season. Alter also revealed the storyline he’s most looking forward to covering this year—Mike Babcock’s return to Toronto—and wrapped things up with his prediction for where the Leafs will be by Christmas.

Catch the next summer episode of Leafs Morning Take on Wednesday at 11 AM e.t.

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