# 5. Ilya Samsonov
The Toronto Maple Leafs ex-General Manager Kyle Dubas made a great play in the summer of 2022.
Faced with the option of overpaying Jack Campbell or making a value bet on a couple of down-on-their-luck former starters, Dubas chose the later.
It was a creative move that worked well.
Dubas leveraged the Ottawa Senators cap situation to his own advantage and received multiple draft picks to take on the last two years of Matt Murray’s contract. Murray had a decent season but was injured frequently, which allowed the Leafs to use his cap-hit elsewhere, eliminating the only risk of trading for him in the first place.
Since the Leafs had Joseph Woll and Erik Karllgren who were both able to go back and forth from the AHL to the NHL without waivers, there was really no risk that they’d be short a goalie, as long as he signed someone to work in tandem with Murray.
Enter Ilya Samsonov, ex-first round pick and starting goalie of the Washington Capitals. It was a low-risk move that paid big dividends as Samsonov had a career season leading the league in high-danger 5v5 save percentage.
Samsonov went on to win a playoff series when the Leafs beat the Lightning, and he was cemented as a true legend and stokelord supreme.
Since 1990, only Felix Potvin, Curtis Joseph, Eddie Belfour and Ilya Samsonov have won a playoff series. That makes him the 5th best goalie since 1990, with a possibility of climbing the list if he sticks around.