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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

Preston said:
Can he bounce back? Sure. Goalies are notoriously tough to predict and Bobrovsky has a ton of pedigree over the last decade. But this isn’t the first season that he’s been below average, a one off. It’s now two in a row, and that trend is a red flag.

It’s telling that the Panthers moved on here. It’s telling that the Hurricanes aren’t spending this kind of money on goalies. It’s telling that the Colorado Avalanche found their goalies on the scrap heap via trade. If those are three of the league’s smartest teams, it’s telling that they don’t make decisions like this one.

That’s where the cap-hit issue comes in. The Leafs have space, but they would’ve been much better served using it where it matters: on a still underwhelming forward group that doesn’t have the depth to compete with any of those top teams.

With goalies being so difficult to predict, it’s always better to spend money elsewhere, where you have a better idea of what you’re getting. Unless that goalie is a sure thing, it’s not worth it — and there aren’t a whole lot of sure things. Bobrovsky, after a season in which he was among the league’s worst goalies, certainly isn’t one of them.
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The big question now is are we going to have the injured bum as the backup, or is he staying and starting and we now have a $7m backup, and ditch Hildeby for nothing to run with $11m of old injured goalies. Jesus fucking Christ.
 
Just because they spent tens of millions of dollars on filling out the rest of the roster with 4th line trash, it doesn't make the Bob contract any good. It may make it look good by comparison, but it's not really a move that a data centric team makes.

I can appreciate the hopium takes on him, because there really is a chance that he's randomly an average-ish goalie and we know he's durable and will play a lot of games, but it's probably more likely that his 2 years in a row of below average play is a trend at 38 years old. So that's a lot of money and a lot of term for what is more likely to be goaltending that you can get out of a near league min goalie.
 
I still think last year was a special level of hilarious bullshit that we're super unlikely to see repeat. Hiller appears to be a solid coach who thinks the game right and we are just flat out better than last year roster wise.

But this does feel like a return to the core 4 era where we look at 4 dudes and 1 defender, poke them with a stick and tell them to do the thing while the rest of the roster plays no event hockey.
 
Preston said:
Just because they spent tens of millions of dollars on filling out the rest of the roster with 4th line trash, it doesn't make the Bob contract any good. It may make it look good by comparison, but it's not really a move that a data centric team makes.

I can appreciate the hopium takes on him, because there really is a chance that he's randomly an average-ish goalie and we know he's durable and will play a lot of games, but it's probably more likely that his 2 years in a row of below average play is a trend at 38 years old. So that's a lot of money and a lot of term for what is more likely to be goaltending that you can get out of a near league min goalie.
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We do have to qualify the two year take by mentioning that Florida was shit this year. I guess you could say it was shit because he was bad, but I’m confident it was a team effort.
 
MindzEye said:
1 yr mate. He was solidly above average in 24-25. Average SV% has gone down a lot the last few years. A .905 with a +7.7gsaa in 24-25.
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Dom says 2 years in a row, not sure what data he's using tho. Regardless he was one of the worst goalies in the world last year. It's a batshit insane bet to make. So much so, that no one on this forum even believed it would happen despite all the noise surrounding it.
 
So it seems like Chayka was really good at doing obvious things

Fire Berube
Draft McKenna
Raddysh

but the other stuff seems to be a mixed bag with the Woll trade being good and everything today, except Blueger being terrible.
 
Preston said:
Dom says 2 years in a row, not sure what data he's using tho. Regardless he was one of the worst goalies in the world last year.
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Oh, he was so shit last year that I don't even like making the correction.

But Bobrovsky was not bad in 24-25.

He was 11th in the NHL in 5v5 GSAA/60 & 5v5 sv%, closer to ~15th depending on your preferred minutes cut off in all strengths.

I'm not defending the move because I fucking hate it, just saying that there is a somewhat reasonable argument to make that last year was an aberration, and he's not cooked, and that we can get 1-2 years of average plus hockey out of him, which would make the contract okay and not a disaster.
 
MindzEye said:
Oh, he was so shit last year that I don't even like making the correction.

But Bobrovsky was not bad in 24-25.

He was 11th in the NHL in 5v5 GSAA/60 & 5v5 sv%, closer to ~15th depending on your preferred minutes cut off in all strengths.

I'm not defending the move because I fucking hate it, just saying that there is a somewhat reasonable argument to make that last year was an aberration, and he's not cooked, and that we can get 1-2 years of average plus hockey out of him, which would make the contract okay and not a disaster.
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Oh dom published an article saying he's been below average 2 years in a row. he should probably correct that
 
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