The Toronto Maple Leafs, who won their own season opener, will be trying to spoil the host Ottawa Senators' season debut on Friday night.
The teams will meet again Saturday night in Ottawa.
The Maple Leafs scored a 5-4 comeback victory over the Montreal Canadiens at home Wednesday night on an overtime goal by defenseman Morgan Rielly.
William Nylander had two goals and an assist, and John Tavares, who set up the game-winner, had a goal and two assists.
"It's the first game of the season here, first time playing a game at that tempo," Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. "We just had a pretty emotional comeback win here for our first, so I'm not going to get too nitpicky. We'll get better every day."
The Leafs will face a Senators team that has a lot of new faces compared to the team that started last season. Among them will be Tim Stutzle, the third overall pick in the 2020 NHL draft. Coach D.J. Smith has been playing the 18-year-old on a line with veteran Derek Stepan and newcomer Evgenii Dadonov in practices.
"My goal was to make the team," Stutzle said. "I'm so excited to be here right now. If I'm going to play (Friday). ... it's going to be a dream come true."
The emergence of veteran Artem Anisimov in training camp, and Josh Norris' strong performance, appear to have pushed Logan Brown -- a first-round pick in 2015 -- out of the mix at the center position.
The Senators finished 30th among the 31 teams in last season's overall standings.
They hope that the addition of forward Austin Watson and defensemen Josh Brown and Erik Gudbranson will make them better defensively.
"We definitely want to take a step forward," Senators alternate captain Thomas Chabot said. "The last three years I've been here we haven't had a great season. We've added a lot of pieces, whether it's younger guys or older guys, we added some pieces that are going to help us."
Goaltender Matt Murray, who was on two Stanley Cup-championship teams with the Pittsburgh Penguins, is a key addition to the Senators.
Murray, has a 3-3-1 lifetime record in eight career games against Toronto with a .926 save percentage and a 2.51 goals-against average.
The Senators know they are being severely tested with back-to-back games against the Maple Leafs.
"The Leafs are a very talented team, they've got a lot of talent up front," Chabot said. "We've got to find ways to break the puck out, talk a lot more on the ice and just little things that are going to help us going into our first game."
They will find that the Maple Leafs have added toughness, including the addition of forward Wayne Simmonds.
With Toronto trailing 3-1 in the second period against Montreal, Simmonds dropped Canadiens defenseman Ben Chiarot in a quick fight that seemed to energize the Leafs,
"It felt good," Simmonds said. "I thought the boys needed a little bit of spark there. I know my role on this team. I asked Chiarot and I didn't think he wanted to go at first, but he dropped the gloves before me, so it was green-light go. It helped turn the tide."
"It pretty much changed the whole game once that all went down," said fellow Maple Leafs newcomer Joe Thornton. "It got the guys' attention on the bench."
--Field Level Media