Maple Leafs’ fortunes rely heavily on goaltending tandem stepping up

TORONTO — For a team hoping to make a long playoff run, the Toronto Maple Leafs are counting on very inexperienced players at the most important position. That is unless you count the two-time Stanley Cup champion who did not play a single minute of NHL hockey last season.

Leafs camp is rife with storylines, but for all the talk of new captains, new coaches, pending UFAs and young guys pushing for spots, the thing that figures to most directly impact Toronto’s fortunes is how well Joseph Woll, Anthony Stolarz and perhaps even old friend Matt Murray perform in net.

32 Thoughts: The Podcast

32 Thoughts: The Podcast with Kyle Bukauskas and NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman takes a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews around the hockey world.

Latest episodes

Woll won both his playoff starts last spring, but has a grand total of 36 career NHL appearances. Playing for the Florida Panthers, Stolarz had the best save percentage of any goalie in the league (.925) who appeared in at least 25 games last season, but the 30-year-old has started more than 20 contests in a campaign just twice since entering the league seven years ago. Murray, meanwhile, twice carried the Cup around as the Pittsburgh Penguins’ starting goalie, but has been plagued by an assortment of injuries the past few seasons and missed all of last year — save for an AHL conditioning stint — with bilateral hip surgery.

Unfortunately, injuries have also been a central part of the Woll story. In fact, his inability to stay healthy may be the only real ding on the 26-year-old American at this point. “I think Joe is one of the top young goaltenders in the league,” Leafs general manager Brad Treliving said at the opening of training camp on Wednesday. “Now, there [are steps], right? There’s a process you go through. It’s a hard position. We want to make sure we’re supporting [him].”

Woll, a homegrown talent who’s worked his way up the college and AHL ranks since being taken 62^nd overall in 2016, appeared to be establishing himself as a real guy last season when he sustained a high-ankle sprain during a Dec. 7 contest versus the Ottawa Senators. That opened the door for Ilya Samsonov to — after serious struggles of his own — regain No. 1 status in Toronto. But when the Leafs fell behind 3-1 in their first-round series with Boston, Woll supplanted Samsonov and won Games 5 and 6 while surrendering just a single goal in each outing. Sadly, he injured himself in the dying moments of that sixth contest, and the Bruins were able to edge Toronto in Game 7 after Samsonov was pressed into duty.

“The biggest challenge for Joe, quite frankly, has been health,” Treliving said. “Sometimes you can’t control it. But I think he’s got great technical ability, I think he’s got a great mind for the position, a great demeanour for the position, he’s athletic, he looks after himself.”

Stolarz may have heard similar things when, earlier in the summer, he asked his agent, Allain Roy, about Woll. The two Yankee tenders have the same representation and, speaking at the Leafs and Legends Charity Golf Classic earlier this week, the six-foot-six Stolarz said he’s enjoyed learning firsthand what Woll — and Murray — are like as people and athletes. “It’s been a lot of fun, talking to them, getting to know them, picking their brain on certain goalie stuff,” said man who inked a two-year, $5-million UFA pact with the Leafs in July. “On the ice, it’s obviously going to be a battle. You want to go out there, push each other. It’s tough as a goalie, there’s only one spot, [only] one guy can play.”

All things being equal, Woll has the inside edge to at least begin the year as that guy. But, in the case of both Woll and Stolarz, it’s safe to assume — barring injury or a startling bounce-back from Murray — they’ll both be seeing more action this year than at any other point in their careers.

“They’re both going to play more games than they have in the past,” said Leafs coach Craig Berube, who saw Jordan Binnington come out of nowhere in 2019 to lead the St. Louis Blues squad Berube coached at the time to a Cup. “It’s great competition, Matt Murray is here. There’s good competition in net.”

All three guys actually inked new contracts with Toronto in the off-season, with Murray agreeing on a one-year, $875,000 deal on July 1 and Woll signing a three-year, $11-million extension that will kick in next fall. Woll, mind you, is the odd man out when it comes to Cup rings after Stolarz got one as Sergei Bobrovsky’s backup in Florida last season. The New Jersey native was actually still in Florida celebrating the big win when he put pen to paper with Toronto for the 2024-25 campaign. Throw in a few weddings, and it was a pretty short summer for Stolarz, who’s now with his fifth NHL organization.

Easing the transition to Toronto is the fact old Florida pal Oliver Ekman-Larsson also joined the Buds in the summer as a UFA D-man. The Swede sure had good things to say about the goalie who ranked third in Moneypuck’s goals-save above expected metric last season (20.1) in just 27 outings. “Very good goalie,” Ekman-Larsson said. “He works very hard every single day, on and off the ice. Unbelievable teammate.”

As it happens, Stolarz also played major junior hockey with Max Domi and Mitch Marner on the London Knights. Whether he’s talking to guys he knows a little bit or completely new faces in Toronto, winning that Cup in Florida is obviously a topic of conversation.

“I keep telling them, let’s do it again; run it back this year,” he said with a smile.

For the Leafs to have any chance at that, one of their goalies will need to step up.

More from Sportsnet

Why William Nylander’s experiment at centre is getting a reboot by Maple Leafs

Why crucial Senators season depends on ‘calm and collected’ Linus Ullmark

Source link