Sergei Bobrovsky joined the Maple Leafs, but Toronto may have made his job harder

Sergei Bobrovsky is coming off one of the worst seasons of his career and Toronto may have made a rebound more difficult thanks to concerns regarding their defence despite adding Darren Raddysh and Emil Andrae.

Bobrovsky signed a three-year, $21-million contract this summer to help solidify the Maple Leafs crease and give them a proven winner and clutch playoff performer, though his age does raise some concern.

He's also coming off a down year where he had a 27-23-1 record with a .877 SV% and 3.07 GAA which is well below his career numbers (.912 SV%, 2.61 GAA) and the Maple Leafs are betting that it was an anomaly of a season for Bobrovsky that is a bad representation of his overall resume.

Toronto added a championship goalie without rebuilding the group that's in front of him

The two-time Cup winner should add some stability to the crease especially with Anthony Stolarz's injury concerns, and it will be a true test to see if Bobrovsky can handle a full workload as he and Stolarz are the undisputed tandem.

As much as the Maple Leafs improved in some areas, they seemed to neglect some. While the bottom-six got better defensively, tougher to play against and take away burdensome minutes from the stars, the blueline really didn't move much in terms of mobility.

Besides the acquisition of Emil Andrae, the team didn't add a ton of youth or mobility. Darren Raddysh will help offensively and adds one of the stronger possession-heavy defenders, but beyond that it's a lot of heavy minutes for their aging veterans.

They also traded both Simon Benoit and Brandon Carlo, so it's a question of whether the addition of Raddysh and Andrae can improve upon their possession and defensive numbers.

Toronto is relying on Chris Tanev to return to form after an 11-game season that was shutdown due to a core injury, hoping Oliver Ekman-Larsson can continue turning back the clock, and have faith that their depth covers any holes.

Right now, these are the potential defensive pairings for the Maple Leafs in 2026-27:

McCabe -- Raddysh
Rielly -- Tanev
Ekman-Larsson -- Andrae

Stecher
Myers

That group doesn't spark a lot of hope for getting the puck out quickly and as we saw last year, they had a difficult time getting the puck out. They gave up the puck 47.88% of the time in the defensive zone, and were ninth-worst in defensive zone giveaways to opponents (552) per MoneyPuck.

They also finished last with a 45.5% shot attempt percentage at 5v5, and only spent 38.9% of their time in the offensive zone, leaving their goalies struggling behind a team spending too much time defending.

The Maple Leafs may need to protect Bobrovsky more than they need him to protect them

Jim Hiller has to ensure he doesn't overwork Bobrovsky and that means the team may need to be a bit more conservative. He was a coach who played a much more defensive style in Los Angeles and may need to implement some of that in Toronto.

Taking that extra second to hold onto the puck and not just half-heartedly trying to clear it is going to be critical in minimizing shots against Bobrovsky which means Hiller also has to make sure he has the right personnel available. Reducing time spent without the puck will be just as important as reducing shots - they need to be quicker and more confident.

Per MoneyPuck, Oliver Ekman-Larsson led the team with 71 defensive zone giveaways so he'll need a player like Tanev to help take care of clearing attempts, and putting Jake McCabe with Morgan Rielly may seem like a solution on the surface, but they combined for 115 defensive zone giveaways last year.

Bobrovsky is one of the greatest goalies of the modern era and has proven his worth time and time again. But he also had a lot of help in front of him to make life easier so the Maple Leafs may need to work extra hard to ensure that.

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