Sergei Bobrovsky is in Toronto now, but the Maple Leafs may have handed him a tougher assignment than they realized.
The veteran goalie signed a three-year, $21-million deal this summer to give the Maple Leafs a proven winner in net and a playoff performer with real pedigree. That part is easy to understand.
The concern is everything around him. Bobrovsky is coming off one of the roughest seasons of his career, and Toronto is betting that last year’s numbers were an outlier rather than a sign of what’s coming next.
In 2025-26, Bobrovsky went 27-23-1 with a .877 SV% and 3.07 GAA. Those marks sit well below his career standards of a .912 SV% and 2.61 GAA. The Maple Leafs are clearly banking on the bigger body of work, not the down year, but there’s also no escaping the fact that he’s on the older side now.
He should still bring stability to a crease that needed it, especially with Anthony Stolarz’s injury concerns. Toronto’s setup puts Bobrovsky and Stolarz in a true tandem, and the question is whether Bobrovsky can handle a full workload if the team needs him to.
The bigger issue may be the blue line in front of him. Toronto improved in some spots, but not enough to completely ease the burden on its goalies.
The bottom six got better defensively and should be tougher to play against, taking some of the pressure off the stars. But the defense corps, as a whole, still looks like it could force the team to spend too much time without the puck.
Beyond Emil Andrae, the Leafs didn’t add much in the way of youth or mobility on the back end. Darren Raddysh brings offense and is one of the stronger possession-style defenders in the group, but there’s still a lot riding on older veterans eating heavy minutes.
Toronto also moved Simon Benoit and Brandon Carlo, which leaves open the question of whether Raddysh and Andrae can actually improve the team’s possession and defensive results. The Leafs are counting on Chris Tanev to bounce back after an 11-game season that ended because of a core injury, and they’re hoping Oliver Ekman-Larsson can keep turning back the clock. They’ll also need depth to patch over the gaps.
The projected 2026-27 defensive pairings listed for Toronto include Stecher and Myers, and that doesn’t exactly scream quick puck movement. Last season, the Maple Leafs had trouble getting the puck out cleanly. They gave it up 47.88% of the time in the defensive zone and were ninth-worst in defensive zone giveaways to opponents with 552, per MoneyPuck.
The puck-protection problems showed up everywhere. Toronto finished last with a 45.5% shot attempt percentage at 5v5 and spent only 38.9% of its time in the offensive zone. That’s the kind of profile that leaves goaltenders exposed, and it’s why Bobrovsky may need more help from the team than the team needs from him.
Jim Hiller will have to be careful not to run Bobrovsky into the ground. The coach, who used a more defensive style in Los Angeles, may have to lean into that approach again in Toronto. That means more patience with the puck, fewer rushed clears, and a sharper effort to cut down on shots against.
That also means personnel matters. MoneyPuck had Ekman-Larsson leading the team with 71 defensive zone giveaways, so Tanev’s presence could be important in cleaning that up. Pairing Jake McCabe with Morgan Rielly might look appealing at first glance, but the two combined for 115 defensive zone giveaways last year.
Bobrovsky has built a career as one of the great goalies of the modern era, and he has earned that reputation. The problem is that he’s often had strong support in front of him, and Toronto may need to work harder than most to give him the same kind of cushion.
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Nick Paul Sent Leafs Fans A Message Theyll Want To Hear
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Paul also wasted no time leaning into the moment, speaking about the trade in an interview and again on social media as he joined the conversation around his new team. For Leafs fans, the appeal is obvious: a player who has already spent years in a winning environment and now brings that background to Toronto, where the fit feels especially personal and the next layer of his story is still unfolding. [Read more 🡒]
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Toronto is one of the teams that naturally gets mentioned when speculation starts to swirl around elite talent, but any realistic path would be painful. The price tag being discussed would force the Leafs to consider major young assets and premium draft capital, and the kind of deal that makes sense on paper is the same kind that can reshape a roster for years. For now, it remains a hypothetical, but it is the sort of hypothetical that would have Leafs fans paying attention to every update out of Colorado. [Read more 🡒]
Maple Leafs Suddenly Face A Tough Blue Line Decision
The Maple Leafs have added Darren Raddysh in a sign-and-trade deal, a move that only sharpens the questions around a defense group already under review. Toronto is weighing how the blue line fits together with Morgan Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the mix, and the front office is clearly sorting through both roster balance and salary-cap pressure as it looks at its next step.
Rielly has already taken the unusual step of putting together a list of preferred destinations, which tells you how serious the conversation has become even if nothing has been finalized. Ekman-Larsson also sits in the middle of the discussion as the Leafs consider whether a change on defense comes through trade or another roster adjustment, leaving Toronto with a decision that could reshape the back end before the dust settles. [Read more 🡒]