The Toronto Maple Leafs continue to have a goaltending emergency.
The reason it is an emergency is that if the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t fix this problem immediately, they could miss the playoffs.
The Leafs can’t just sit back and rely on Joseph Woll because he’s a rookie who is injury prone and has played about one season’s worth of games over the last three years before this one.
They can’t trust Samsonov because he’s horrible.
And they can’t continue to rely on Martin Jones, because he is also horrible. Though he had a nice run that could potentially save the season, he isn’t a good goalie. He is old and hasn’t finished a season with a save percengage above .900 in five years. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
Emergency: The Leafs Do Not Have an NHL Goalie on Their Roster
Since Joseph Woll was injured, the Leafs record is 9-7-4.
That is good for 18th in the NHL and gives them basically the same record over the last 20 games as Montreal, Columbus and Buffalo.
And to get that record, they had to go on a four game winning streak against four horrible teams (or, 2 horrible teams, one of them twice, and a third team that was in the midst of losing nine of ten when the Leafs beat them).
So I think we can all agree that only a soft schedule, and an unlikely Martin Jones hot streak has prevented the Leafs from entering disaster territory.
Brad Treliving doing nothing to help this team during this period is nearly a dereliction of duty.
Right now the Leafs do not have an NHL goalie on their roster. Since his unlikely hot streak, Martin Jones has played four games, is 1-3 and has a very realistic .882 save-percentage.
Regression is coming for him, and it’s coming fast. He wasn’t an NHL goalie when the Leafs signed him, which is why they didn’t lose him on waivers. He isn’t a good NHL goalie now, and the season depends on him unless the Leafs make a trade.
It is an absolute joke that the Leafs have gone nearly a quarter of a season wdithout an NHL goalie on the roster. The Bruins and Panthers are running away, and the Red Wings and Lightning are coming hard.
Right now, the Leafs are closer to the Montreal Canadiens in the standings than the Boston Bruins.
Ouch!
Joseph Woll is on the road trip, but how good is he going to be when he comes back? He’s a rookie, and he’ll have sat out for nearly two months by the time he’s back. He isn’t an answer, and certainly Martin Jones isn’t either.
Of course, trading for a goalie with term and a high salary makes things complicated next year, but you can’t waste a year of Matthews prime. The obvious answer is to trade for Jordan Binnington, but at this point, literally any NHL quality goalie would be an improvement over what the Leafs have.