Toronto Maple Leafs Can Win a Stanley Cup With Joseph Woll

If Joseph Woll emerges as the No. 1 goaltender for the Toronto Maple Leafs next season, will the team be worse off than last year?

When the 2022-23 season started, although it was tough to have faith in him, many people predicted that Matt Murray would be the starter come April, yet Ilya Samsonov won that role for the Toronto Maple Leafs, deservingly so.

With a cap-hit roughly $3M less than Murray’s, Samsonov becoming the team’s starting goaltender was not only beneficial for the roster up-front, but for the team’s payroll as well, as they were able to make the Ryan O’Reilly trade as a result.

With Murray’s salary off the books due to LTIR and a low salary-cap for a goalie, Toronto would get creative and it resulted in them finally winning a playoff series for the first time in 19 years.

With Murray still under contract for one more season, I think everyone in the world would prefer that he never plays a game with the Leafs again. Whether it’s because he goes back on LTIR or is traded, his $4.6M contract would be best suited somewhere else.

Murray has won two Stanley Cup’s and was a big reason for that success, but after countless injuries, he’s not a reliable goaltender anymore. In a perfect world, he’d play 40-50 games and be the team’s starter, turning the clock back to 2016, but it’s now been roughly five years since he’s been productive (and healthy), so nothing suggests that anything is changing.

The Leafs could look to free agency to add to their goaltending depth, but to be honest, there isn’t much available this year. There are familiar names that the average fan would be aware of, like Jonathan Quick, but he’s past his prime. He could fit in at the league-minimum as a back-up, but you’re not getting 50 games out of him anymore.

Woll Could Work as the Toronto Maple Leafs Number-One Goaltender

As previously mentioned, Samsonov was a great starter for the Leafs last season, but the pending RFA may be too expensive. As a result, the smartest decision could be to promote Woll as the starter, which may make fans nervous, but should it?

It’s a small sample-size, but if the playoffs taught us anything, it’s that Woll isn’t afraid of the moment. In four playoff games, he played well, posting a .915 SV% and 2.43 GAA and was definitely not the reason why the Leafs lost.

Woll will be 25-years-old in a few weeks, which seems like a perfect time for a promotion. After getting drafted 62nd overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, Woll has now developed into an NHL goalie and should be given a chance to be the everyday starter.

In my opinion, the only reason Woll shouldn’t be the starter is if you can trade for someone like Connor Hellebuyck, because at least with Hellebuyck, you know you’re getting a Vezina Trophy goalie. As for Woll, you could be getting a dumpster fire, or you could be getting one of the best contracts in hockey, but the unknown is scary.

Woll has shown enough over the past year that the team should give him the net and see what happens because not only do I think he can do the job, but his cap-hit is a dream. With less than $1M tied up to your starter, the Toronto Maple Leafs can improve their defense and surround Woll with so much talent that even if he performs less than average, the team can get away with it.

Winning a Stanley Cup is a stretch with Woll as your number-one, but crazier things have happened. The aforementioned Murray, Jordan Binnington and as recently as Aidin Hill were all unknowns before winning a Stanley Cup, so it’s happened before and can happen again.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will probably find a way to screw it up, but at least previous examples show that it’s possible and based on the cap implications, the they should probably name Woll their starter next year.