What Does a Dream Trade Deadline Look Like for the Toronto Maple Leafs?

The Goalie

The Toronto Maple Leafs have received the 14th best 5v5 goaltending in the NHL this year, and that is simply unacceptable.

What makes that even more concerning is that Martin Jones went on a bizarre hotstreak and will for-sure regress back to his sub-NHL norm. Joseph Woll has stolen at least three, maybe four games. While Ilya Samsonov stole a game and an OT loss.

All together, the Leafs current record is supported by at least five or six goalie thefts. While those are a good thing, you can't rely on them to keep happening when you don't have a trustworthy goalie on the roster.

I'm happy that Ilya Samsonov has had a couple of good games, but there is no way you can trust him as one of your two goalies on a quest to win the Cup this year. It would be an extremely low-reward, high-risk play and it would be stupid. He's got to go.

Martin Jones is a fine goalie to use if both your first two guys go down. But you don't want him anywhere near a playoff roster.

Joseph Woll would be an ideal backup when he returns from injury. You can't trust him to stay healthy, he has no experience and hasn't played a ton over the past three seasons. Additionally, there is no way of knowing how he's going to play when he returns from his high-ankle sprain.

Sticking with any of these guys as the starter would be extremely risky. The Leafs have almost no choice but to trade for a goalie.

The dream addition here is Juuse Saros. He is one of the few franchise goalies alive in the world today, and he would be by far the best goalie the Leafs have had since Ed Belfour retired.

The price would be high, but it's worth it to finally have an elite goalie backstopping an Auston Matthews led team.