John Chayka getting blamed for yet another costly mistake
Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
John Chayka's Toronto Maple Leafs added six forwards this summer, and the loudest complaint is that none of them fixes the top six.
That reading treats the forward group as the plan. It was the decoy.
The Toronto Maple Leafs gutted their crease, trading Joseph Woll to the Philadelphia Flyers, flipping Samuel Ersson to the Ottawa Senators, and, per NHL.com, sending Dennis Hildeby to Tampa Bay for Nick Paul.
Then Chayka spent the real money, signing 37-year-old Sergei Bobrovsky to a three-year contract, with reports pegging it near $21 million.
That is where the strategy lives.
The forwards were cheap identity pieces; the crease got the checkbook.
Why the top six was never the target
Toronto's top-six hole is a year old, dating to Mitch Marner's 2025 sign-and-trade to the Vegas Golden Knights, and it is still open.
Chayka did not buy a winger to close it. He is betting the internal answer arrives on its own.
Jack Roslovic, dismissed elsewhere as a bottom-six body, is the very name Toronto keeps floating for a look on Auston Matthews' wing.
Behind him sits the draft-lottery prize, with fans already imagining a rookie feeding Matthews for a decade.
The model Bobrovsky already beat Toronto with
Here is the uncomfortable part for the old skill-first Maple Leafs.
Bobrovsky is the goalie who backstopped Florida past Connor McDavid's Edmonton Oilers in back-to-back Cup Finals.
Chayka just imported that exact template: elite, calm goaltending carrying a merely good top six, rather than four stars papering over an average crease.
Anthony Stolarz stays as insurance, and Chayka has admitted the churn "didn't make a lot of sense" move by move.
Judged as a top-six rebuild, this offseason looks like a miss.
Judged as a goaltending-first bet on a proven formula, it is the most coherent thing Toronto has done in years.
The forwards were never supposed to save this season. The 37-year-old in net is.
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