- John Tavares says the Maple Leafs “clearly weren’t very good” last season
- Toronto has six new forwards, two new defensemen, a new starting goalie, a new GM and a new head coach
- Read below for what Tavares said about Sergei Bobrovsky and rooming with Gavin McKenna
John Tavares is not sugarcoating what happened to the Toronto Maple Leafs last season.
Toronto’s longest-serving veteran spoke at the NHL/NHLPA Player Media Tour in Las Vegas this week, where he was asked about the teardown general manager John Chayka has run since replacing Brad Treliving. Tavares went straight at it.
“It was tough to see when ‘Tree’ was let go, and it was the sign that obviously changes were starting and coming,” Tavares told Daily Faceoff. “I think you just always have faith that we have a really good nucleus of a team and that unfortunately last year, it just went off the rails for us a little bit, and we got off track. And you try to take the ownership and understand that we have to just do a much better job, and clearly we weren’t very good.”
Here’s Tavares working through his media day in Vegas:
The churn around him is enormous. Six new forwards are penciled into the projected lineup, including No. 1 pick Gavin McKenna, Jack Roslovic, Teddy Blueger, Nick Paul, Colton Sissons and Brandon Duhaime.
Darren Raddysh and Emil Andrae joined the blue line. Sergei Bobrovsky signed a three-year, $21 million deal on July 1 to share the crease with Anthony Stolarz. Mats Sundin came aboard as a senior executive adviser, and Jim Hiller took over behind the bench from Craig Berube.
Check out the shoot the Leafs ran on the same trip:
Bobrovsky is the new arrival Tavares sounds most fascinated by. The goaltender broke Toronto’s heart twice with Florida, posting a combined .922 save percentage in playoff series wins over the Leafs in 2023 and 2025. Asked what the 37-year-old brings beyond the saves, Tavares pointed at how he lives.
“[How] he’s aged and how he takes care of himself has become kind of legendary, and who he is as a goaltender, as an athlete,” Tavares said. “So, really excited to be around him.”
McKenna is the other big change to his daily life. The 18-year-old is living with the Tavares family this season, the same arrangement Tavares had as an Islanders rookie with Doug Weight in 2009. He told NHL.com that his three kids have already claimed the kid from Whitehorse as their own.
Tavares turns 36 next week, and he sounds like a man who would rather rebuild the room than run last season back.
