The Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Joseph Woll to Contract Extension

Last week the Toronto Maple Leafs tried to trade for Jacob Markstrom.

This week, even though all logic suggests that they are still going to trade for a goalie, they have re-signed back-up goalie / potential starter / former organizational top-prospect Joseph Woll to a contract extension.

According to Kevin Weeks, the Leafs have signed Woll to a 3 year extension.

This is an interesting deal for the Leafs, to say the least.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Joseph Woll to Contract Extension

The Toronto Maple Leafs need a goalie worse than any team in the NHL. Their last season was ruined by their GM's inability to upgrade in net before the trade deadline, and the team's insistance on sticking with Samsonov over Woll.

The Leafs clearly like Woll, but he's essentially still a rookie, having played in just 39 games in his career. Also, in the last five years, NHL and AHL combined, he's barely played a full season due to injuries (and also Covid).

The Leafs can't rely on him to stay healthy, which means they can't risk using him as their starting goalie during Auston Matthews liminted prime years.

And that makes this extention somewhat weird. Though the contract isn't officially announced, it's expected to be about $3.5 million for the next three years, and to kick in after the upcoming season.

If the Leafs were to trade for a goalie like Jusse Saros or Jacob Markstrom (which we know for sure that they tried to last week) that would make their investment in goalies extremely heavy, at least by cap hit.

Now maybe this is a back-up plan and they've pivoted off their idea of trading for a front-line goalie. If so, that's a very stupid move and everyone involved should be fired.

But giving them the benifit of the doubt, you can imagine this as a smart move - they don't know whether or not they'll get a better goalie, but they are going to try and if they are successful, then after next year, if it's best to trade Woll this contract should be movable.

This deal could really pay off. If Woll became the Leafs starter and had a great season, his cap hit for the next three years would be dirt-cheap, and otherwise, it should be tradable, so it seems pretty low risk with a potentially high reward.

So, contingent on the Leafs still landing a top 10 starting goalie, I like this signing a lot. However, if their plan is to just go with Woll and some kind of low-grade UFA signing like Laurent Brossoit, I think they are fools.