Where the Toronto Maple Leafs Went Wrong (Continued)
5. Ilya Samsonov
They saw how bad their goaltending was in last year's playoffs, didn't sign Ilya Samsonov to a contract extention , but instead took him to arbitration.
They signed him for one year and within three months he was on waivers.
The Leafs have been goalied multiple times during their current window of Cup Contention, but they have never had a goalie capable of stealing a series for them.
At the trade dealine, the Leafs were one of the hottest teams in the league and had only league average goaltending during that streak, which should have told them what their potential was with a star goalie.
It remains amazing to me that no one has thought to combine the skills of Auston Matthews with one of the best goalies in the world.
There are five pretty clearly above everyone else: Connor Hellebuyck, Jusse Saros, Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shesterkin and Joel Oettinger. The Leafs should have tried harder to acquire one of those guys, even if the cost was Nylander or Marner.
6. The Trade Deadline
They didn't do anything to augment their roster at the trade deadline, and outside of Tyler Bertuzzi (who did not equal what Michael Bunting brought for 900K) the new GM wasted the $20 million he had to spend last summer.
Honestly, as someone who has been a fan of this team for his entire life, I felt ripped off that they didn't do more to try and win at this year's trade deadline.
I don't want to believe this, because I think it's way too cynical, but the only explanation I can think of to having a 70 goal scorer and doing nothing but adding Joel Edmundson is that they figured they might get lucky but that if they lost Kyle Dubas would take the blame, and therefore it was wise to hold their assets for next year when they could take all the glory for themselvfes.
Whatever their motivation, it was a pretty stupid move to just sit back and enter the playoffs with their current goalies and defensemen, I hope the Leafs win the Stanley Cup, but at this point in the team-building process they should be a top team with a juggernaut roster, not an average team hoping to get lucky.