Aaron Dell (San Jose Sharks)
Looking at the goaltending depth chart in San Jose once more, Aaron Dell is currently plying his trade with the San Jose Barracuda despite having more than 100 NHL games to his name.
He could rightly be termed somewhat of a journeyman at this point, having seen the ice for the San Jose Sharks, New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres.
In recent years, he has failed to impress in the NHL with his goals-against-average above 3 goals in each of his past four NHL campaigns.
Factor in also that he’s sitting on 3.34 goals-against-average and 0.898 save percentage in four AHL games this year and maybe he’s no better of an option than Erik Kallgren or Keith Petruzzelli, except for having more big-league experience.
Or perhaps, there’s more than meets the eye and he’s been a goalie that has performed average on poor teams that offered limited defensive resilience and as such his statistics aren’t as bad as they look.
In his best NHL campaign back in the 2016-17 season, he played 20 games for the San Jose Sharks with a 2.00 goals-against-average and 0.931 save percentage albeit behind the league’s fifth-best defense.
Given his cap hit is just $775,000 the Toronto Maple Leafs might certainly do worse and if they were smart, they’d negotiate an option to loan him back if need be.
That approach would be a smart bet in terms of continuing to develop Kallgren, Petruzzelli and eventually Woll with the Marlies moving forward.
Of course, that also factors him clearing waivers; there’s every chance he’d be picked up solely on the basis of being NHL-ready goaltending.
However, that one break-out campaign as backup to Martin Jones highlights that he was able to get the job done when his defense was firing on all cylinders; there’s worse choices the Leafs could make.