Toronto Maple Leafs: What These Playoffs Say About Goaltending

The Toronto Maple Leafs have had struggles with their goaltending in the past and it’s always been an important part of a playoff push, but this year, no so much?

When you look to the Tampa Bay Lightning, both the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Rangers bettered their save percentage across a series.

Likewise, the Colorado Avalanche lack what you’d traditionally view as Stanley Cup Final worthy goaltending, in that they’ve had to split the load between a clear number one/number two duo.

In fact, if anyone told you it would be Pavel Francouz proving himself the equal of Darcy Kuemper, you might very well have responded with surprise.

Toronto Maple Leafs Can Draw Some Hope From This

The sheer fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs outscored the Tampa Bay Lightning, something only achieved by themselves and the Colorado Avalanche (so far) speaks volumes.

It of course doesn’t mean to say that placed in the same spot this year’s Toronto Maple Leafs would truly have been able to compete with the Avalanche.

However, when you think about all the concern that was floating around that maybe Jack Campbell isn’t a goalie that can take you to the Stanley Cup Final, it feels like it was overdone when you look to the Avs example.

They had a top-tier number one and a backup that have guided them to the Final, which speaks to their team defense, but I think also reflects a slightly easier path in the Western Conference.

When you look around the West for elite goalies; Marc-Andre Fleury certainly used to count and could’ve sprung a surprise in Minnesota. Juuse Saros has made himself stand-out in recent times, but behind a Nashville side that never felt much of a chance. It’s slim pickings really.

By comparison, the Eastern Conference path to the Final would’ve been Andrei Vasilevskiy, followed by Sergei Bobrovsky followed by Igor Shesterkin – that’s a gauntlet of elite goalies.

The thinking being though, if the offensive talent in your team (see: Tampa Bay) can clear those hurdles, they certainly deserve their spot in the Final even if their own goalie has found himself out-duelled on more than one occasion.

You have to think that this can give the Toronto Maple Leafs some hope, whichever way they opt to move forward with their current goaltending dilemma.

Jack Campbell certainly still feels like an alright bet to get the group through a playoff round, if the rest of the team can fire at the same time.

Let’s just remember next year that the team with a two-one series lead right now did so on the back of two goalies with 0.906 and 0.892 save percentages (stats from Natural Stat Trick) in this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Whatever direction the Toronto Maple Leafs go with goaltending next season, there is absolutely still hope.