Joseph Woll Back with Maple Leafs + Still Need a Goalie + 10 Day Countdown
The Toronto Maple Leafs have won seven games in a row.
As impressive as that is, the Toronto Maple Leafs still need to improve their roster.
There are ten days left until the NHL trade deadline and the countdown is on.
The Leafs need a forward, 2 x puck-moving defenders (one should be a star) and a goalie. That's a lot to ask for, and they likely won't get everything they need.
Still, we have seen what they can do with their core and a decent but not great surrounding cast. If they can upgrade a team that already has Knies, Robertson, Bertuzzi and McMann as it's depth pieces a Stanley Cup is a real possibility.
Toronto Maple Leafs Get Joseph Woll Back Still Need a Goalie
Joseph Woll is back after one game in the minors for conditioning.
If the Leafs get the Woll who stole several games earlier this season back, then they are going to be a much better team than the one we've been watching since he was injured.
That, however, is a longshot. Woll is a rookie with no playoff experience and he is injury prone. He has played just one full season over the last three. He is also coming off a high-ankle sprain which is supposedly a very hard injury for a goalie to come back from.
All things add up to the realization that he cannot be relied upon. Anything they get from him this year is a bonus, but they can't bet the season on Joseph Woll.
And I don't care what anyone says, you'd have to be a complete lunatic to move forward with Ilya Samsonov.
Yes, he's had a few good weeks. But he was also on waivers earlier in the season and he is 100% unreliable. The Leafs can't bet a year of Auston Matthews' prime on two unreliable goalies.
They have never paired the best players in the history of their franchise with a legitimate star goalie, and it's about time they do so.
Juuse Saros is available and the price is said to be astronomical. Pay it. The psychological benefits alone from having a top goalie make it worthwhile. Sure, there are no sure things, but there are surer things. And Saros is one of them, despite an off year for him.
His current stats aside, Saros is the kind of goalie you spend your whole career hoping to get. So,if he is available, Brad Trelliving and the Leafs need to do whatever it takes because what they have isn't good enough.
Joseph Woll could very well turn into a star goalie and make me eat these words. I hope he does. But this year, with all that's happened, it would be damn near criminal to enter the playoffs with a Woll/Samsonov combo.
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The Toronto Maple Leafs have ten days to land a goalie.