Is Tonight Maple Leafs' Sergei Bobrovsky's Secret-Handshake Game?

Could this be the game Sergei Bobrovsky finally wins one? I'm wondering. Bobrovsky has played well enough in his first two starts for the Maple Leafs. He just hasn't won either one. He's 0–2 with a 3.06 goals-against average and an .887 save percentage. Those numbers won't get anybody excited.

But I'm not sure the numbers tell the whole story. Now he gets the Vegas Golden Knights. And somehow that feels like an interesting place for Bobrovsky to get his first Maple Leafs win.

Maybe This One Means a Little More.

This game has some baggage. Vegas has plenty of history with the Maple Leafs, and Maple Leafs fans have plenty of feelings about Vegas. Old players, old decisions, and old stories still seem to follow this team around. Bobrovsky has his own baggage, too.

He arrived in Toronto with a long history in Florida, including some very big games against the Maple Leafs. Now he's wearing the Maple Leafs jersey. According to Maple Leafs fans, he's finally on the right side. That's kind of funny when you think about it.

But maybe there's something more to this than that. Sometimes a player doesn't really feel like part of a new team until he has one of those games. The kind where he makes a couple of big saves, the team plays in front of him, and suddenly everybody walks away thinking, OK, he's ours now. Maybe this is that game he learns the Maple Leafs secret handshake.

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Bobrovsky Has Been Good Enough. Now He Needs One.

The Maple Leafs have been splitting the goaltending work between Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz. That'll probably continue if Bobrovsky doesn't start collecting some wins. Fair enough, because goalies get judged by wins, even when wins aren't entirely about goaltending.

Bobrovsky has stopped enough pucks to give Toronto a chance. What he hasn't done yet is finish one off. And that's why I'm curious about Thursday night in Vegas. Not because I think one game suddenly proves Bobrovsky is the answer in goal. It doesn't. And I'm certainly not ready to worry about him after two starts.

Imagine if Bobrovsky Can Stone the Golden Knights.

Imagine Bobrovsky standing in the crease after making the last save on foreign ice, while the Maple Leafs head out of town with two points. Maybe it wouldn't erase any of the old baggage. Maybe it would just add a new piece to the story.

And perhaps that's what we're watching with this new Maple Leafs team. They're not going to erase everything that came before them. They're just starting to write something else.

So, is this the one for Bobrovsky? I'm kind of hoping it is.

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