The Maple Leafs have been given information on Sergei Bobrovsky other teams did not have

Andy O'Brien believes Sergei Bobrovsky's body is younger than his age dictates - giving the Maple Leafs reinforced confidence with the goaltender that others may not have had.

O'Brien was recently hired by the Maple Leafs to head their Sport Performance department and brought in Jason Martin and Josh Crouse as Head Strength and Conditioning coach and Assistant respectively, Dr. Craig Slaunwhite (Health and Performance Integration), and Dr. Jordan Shallow (Human Performance Consultant).

Their goal is to help build a program that gives the Maple Leafs the proper preparation in Strength and Conditioning, Sport Science, Sports Nutrition, Injury Rehabilitation and Mental Performance.

Toronto hired someone who knew Bobrovsky's body would withstand the grind

The team is certainly an older one, and they added to that signing Sergei Bobrovsky this summer. Though he's known as a notoriously fit player - his age and down season where he had a career-worst .877 SV% create genuine risk despite his resume.

Though O'Brien - who has worked with Bobrovsky before with the Panthers - believes that the Russian netminder's age overshadows his true fitness ability and he has less physical wear and tear than a typical goalie in his late 30s.

Sergei Bobrovsky is one of my favorite people to be around. He's in his late 30s, but his biological age is younger than his chronological age, if you ask me.

He has a relatively young body because he takes such good care of himself. He doesn't have the same wear and tear as a lot of goalies his age. I'm a big fan of Bob as a person and as an athlete.

Bobrovsky's workout routine is something of a warrior workout as he spends hours on the ice training in addition to multiple different workouts in the same day. Given that goalies need to be as limber as possible, the care he gives his body is of utmost importance.

This doesn't mean that the Maple Leafs were in the know this entire time about Bobrovsky, nor does it sound like they had prior consulting. But John Chayka did note that Bobrovsky's durability was a key factor in commiting $21-million to him over three years.

That knowledge may explain the reason why Toronto accepted a three-year risk

Toronto doesn't have to judge Bobrovsky on his age, his previous injury history, or his down season last year. If he manages to keep healthy and give the Maple Leafs 50+ starts then it'll be a huge asset who you can depend on regardless of how old he gets.

This doesn't eliminate the chance for regression or for age to catch up to the goalie, but given that he does his absolute best to keep in shape and minimize how quickly his body declines, he'll at least lower the risk.

If he can remain healthy during his three years and manage to give the Maple Leafs a true starter who can handle a 50-game workload and give them stability in the crease without having to worry if he's going to go down.

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