What is the Leafs’ solution on defense?

The Toronto Maple Leafs, in their first season under new head coach Jim Hiller with a roster re-tooled by new general manager John Chayka, continue to look shaky as they try to find their footing and re-establish themselves as a perennial playoff team in the Eastern Conference.

There have been some impressive highs, but also some concerning efforts, particularly on defense, as they’ve conceded at least three goals in regulation in each of their past five games.

Chayka set improving the defense as one of his top priorities when he took the job, and while there have been some moves at the margins, the core group remains largely the same as the one that struggled in the 2025-26 season. Another injury to veteran right-shot Chris Tanev only complicates matters further.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by NHL insider David Pagnotta to discuss what the Leafs can do to foritfy their back end now that Tanev is sidelined again.

Carter Hutton: You’re Toronto beat, but the Leafs, tough loss last night. Injury on the back end, right? Are they looking for a defenseman? I also watched Danil But put Morgan Rielly in the blender. That’s been a question mark all year on the back end. What do the Leafs do here?

David Pagnotta: Hutts, they’ve been looking for D. They’ve been looking for help on D since the preseason. I think they recognize that that’s an area that has to be improved, and most surprising for me is the fact that it hasn’t. In John Chayka’s introductory press conference several months ago, that was the first thing he acknowledged was they have to improve the D and build this team from the D-corp out. They’ve brought in Nick Blankenburg. Okay, good depth piece, I don’t want to take away from him… But that’s not the impact type of move that I think a lot of people were expecting. And even aside from moving out Morgan Rielly, which they didn’t do, and I think they’re comfortable keeping him if they bring in the right complimentary piece to play alongside him. The Chris Tanev injury, not great, but it doesn’t seem like, at least the initial belief is that this is not season-ending or significantly long-term, but he is going to miss some action. They’re still determining exactly what that is… They’ve been looking regardless. The preference is to bring in a second-pair caliber type of defenseman who is more stay-at-home minded but also mobile in a sense of being able to exit the zone quite nicely… That’s something that Chayka acknowledged in his press conference when he was introduced. Get the puck out of your zone from the D and let your forwards get to work, and that’s still what they’re looking for.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…