Sergei Bobrovsky Was Mats Sundin's Idea, and 0-2 Changes Nothing

Sergei Bobrovsky was Sundin's call

The signing that defined the Maple Leafs' summer started with Mats Sundin, not John Chayka. At a Leafs season-ticket holder event last week, Chayka and Sundin explained that going after Sergei Bobrovsky was Sundin's idea, according to Anthony Petrielli's Oct. 5 notebook at Maple Leafs Hot Stove. Chayka's first instinct, as relayed there, was that the goaltending did not need to be addressed first: the forwards and the defence needed more work, and Toronto already had depth in net. Sundin's argument was that you cannot replicate a goalie like Bobrovsky.

Sundin won the argument. Bobrovsky signed a three-year, $21 million contract on July 1, a $7 million cap hit with a no-move clause, per our contracts page. Three games into the season, Bobrovsky is 0-2 with two 3-2 losses. That is exactly the kind of start that will have some people asking whether the Hall of Famer pushed the rookie GM into a mistake.

He did not. But the reason Sundin was right is not the reason most people will give, and the real risk in this signing has nothing to do with the first two starts.

What this says about how the Leafs make decisions

The story is worth more than trivia because it shows how the new front office actually works. Chayka was hired as general manager in May 2026, with Sundin brought in alongside him as a senior executive adviser. It would have been easy to assume Sundin's title was ceremonial, a franchise icon on the letterhead. This is the first concrete example of the adviser changing what the GM did.

That is healthy. A young analytics-driven GM with a defined priority list was talked into a move he did not originally rank first, by someone who had lived the same situation as a player. Whether the move works or not, a front office where the GM can be persuaded is better than one where nobody pushes back. The Leafs of the last decade were often accused of the opposite.

The two starts, plainly

Here is what Bobrovsky has done so far, and what Anthony Stolarz did in the game between:

DateOpponentGoalieSaves/shotsResultSept. 29Montreal CanadiensSergei Bobrovsky21/24L 3-2Sept. 30New York IslandersAnthony Stolarz26/27W 2-1Oct. 3Ottawa SenatorsSergei Bobrovsky26/29L 3-2

Combined, Bobrovsky has stopped 47 of 53 shots, an .887 save percentage. Neither loss was a goalie loss. In the opener, Hiller said afterward that most of Montreal's chances were ones the Leafs gave away with defensive-zone turnovers. Against Ottawa, the Senators outshot Toronto 16-5 in the third period and won it on Stephen Halliday's rebound goal at 9:46. Toronto scored two goals in each game. Few goalies win many games with two.

Bobrovsky is expected to start against Nashville on Oct. 6, which would be his second straight start. Our goalie-plan breakdown covers how the Leafs intend to split the crease over a full season.

Nashville will not make it easy. Steven Stamkos arrives with 625 career goals, tied with Joe Sakic and Jarome Iginla for 17th all-time, and 44 career assists against Toronto, his most against any franchise, according to the Predators. The Preds are 1-1-0 after a 2-1 win over Dallas on Saturday, Oct. 3, and they are 0-5-0 in their last five visits to Scotiabank Arena.

Why Sundin was right

Sundin played on Leaf teams built around veteran goaltending, and the comparison writes itself. Ed Belfour arrived in Toronto in the summer of 2002 at 37, a Stanley Cup winner with plenty of people wondering whether his best years were behind him. He gave Sundin's Leafs two strong seasons in net. Bobrovsky turned 38 on Sept. 20 and arrives with two Stanley Cups from Florida in 2024 and 2025 and two Vezina Trophies from his Columbus years.

The deeper point is about scarcity. A skater who drives play can be found in a trade, as Chayka proved with the Kirill Marchenko deal. A goalie who has carried a team through four rounds twice is not on the market every summer. On July 1 one was available, and Toronto had the cap room to take him. Waiting to fix the defence first would not have produced a better defenceman; it would have produced no goalie.

Chayka's caution was also right, which is the part that gets lost. He was correct that the defence was the bigger problem. Three games in, the Leafs are still searching for a shutdown defenceman, and the second line has been badly outshot through three games. The Bobrovsky signing did not fix those problems. It simply means that when they are fixed, the goaltending should be good enough to win.

The number that should worry you

Here is the real concern, and it predates October. Bobrovsky's 2025-26 regular season in Florida was the worst of his recent career: 52 games, a 27-23-1 record, a 3.07 goals-against average and an .877 save percentage. Those are the numbers of a backup, not a $7 million starter.

There are mitigating factors. A goalie's save percentage carries the defence in front of him, and one season is a small sample for a goalie with his track record. But an .877 at 37 is not something you wave away, and it is why we flagged goaltending as a projected weakness in our preseason look at the crease. Sundin's case rests on Bobrovsky being the goalie he was in the spring of 2024 and 2025. The 2025-26 numbers say that is not guaranteed.

So the honest framing is this. Signing Bobrovsky was a good idea. Whether it was a good contract depends on whether last season was an outlier, and two starts behind a team that has scored six goals in three games cannot answer that.

The Stolarz factor

The safety net matters. Toronto traded Joseph Woll to Philadelphia in June and kept Stolarz, who carries a $3.75 million cap hit through 2029-30. He was excellent against the Islanders, including a reaching right-pad stop on Anthony Duclair at 6:38 of the third period that preserved a two-goal lead.

If Bobrovsky's form from last season follows him, the Leafs have a goalie who can take more starts without the season collapsing. That is the real value of the pairing. It is also why Hiller should resist the temptation to ride Bobrovsky in October to make the signing look good. A 38-year-old does not need 65 starts. He needs to be fresh in April.

Our take: judge him at 20 starts, not two

LeafsLurker's position: Sundin was right, and Chayka was right to listen. Bobrovsky is the best goalie Toronto could have signed this summer, and the gap between him and the alternatives was bigger than the gap between Toronto's defence and a good one.

But the bar should be set honestly. Give him 20 starts. If his save percentage is still below .895 by early December, with the team in front of him playing better than it has in the first week, then the .877 was not an outlier and Toronto has a problem that a no-move clause makes hard to solve. If he is around .905 or better, the Sundin signing is doing exactly what it was meant to do.

What's next

The Leafs host Nashville on Oct. 6 at 1-2-0. The goalie is not why Toronto has lost twice, and he will not be the reason they start winning. That job belongs to the skaters, starting with a scoring problem that two goals a night will not survive.