The Maple Leafs have kicked off their preseason Saturday night with a split-squad series of games in between Toronto and Montreal, against the Canadiens. While the result doesn't matter all that much at all, it's all about seeing some individual performances and we did get a little show in the early goings of one of the game.
In the final minutes of the second period of the game in Toronto as the Canadiens scored earlier in the middle frame to open the scoring, new defenseman Darren Raddysh got to tie the game -- and it was in the most Darren Raddysh way possible.
While on the power play, Raddysh was set up in his office at the top of the point and with a little handoff from his captain Auston Matthews, he unleashed his bomb of a shot. After a couple deflections through Canadiens players, it went in behind the net and the score was 1-1.
🔵 Double Doink Darren pic.twitter.com/kmy0UEPI9j
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) September 20, 2026
While we can't say that we watched every single Tampa Bay Lightning game last season, we know that a whole lot of Raddysh's 22 goals scored came in this fashion. A giant slapshot, often a one-timer, after a little passing play from Nikita Kucherov on the power play. Well now he has Matthews (or Nylander or Tavares or McKenna or Knies) to set those goals up for him.
Raddysh could continue scoring this way for the Leafs
If this season is successful for the Leafs, it might just mean that this type of goal is fairly repeatable for Raddysh. Considering how important it is that the new Leaf, who signed a massive eight-year contract with a $8.5-million AAV this summer, is to the blue line, then we could see this goal happen several times in the next several months.
Whether it is on the power play or not, the fact that Raddysh has shown capable of still doing something like this while wearing the other set of blue and white is a slightly positive sign. Obviously it's still the preseason so we take this goal with a massive pile of salt, but we do still like watching the puck go into the back of the net and in a way that we can maybe see a whole lot of.
After the Leafs finish this split-squad game, they have their second set of split-squad games on Wednesday against the Senators, in Toronto and Ottawa. And that's it for the preseason until they open up their regular season on September 29 against the Canadiens.
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