Last summer, the Leafs declined to offer the term and salary that Jack Campbell was looking for and he left for Edmonton. The status of Dubas, who has used a scattershot approach to goaltenders, has an immediate connection to the future of Samsonov, Woll and Matt Murray. Dubas doesn’t have a contract for next season, and it seems abundantly clear that president Brendan Shanahan needs to make a call on his GM as soon as possible. The Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup last year with Darcy Kuemper in net, then let Kuemper walk and lost in the first round this spring.ĭoes any of this make sense? Is there some kind of logical pattern to all of this?įor the Leafs, this puzzle is made more challenging because it’s not yet known whether general manager Kyle Dubas will be making the decision. Dallas and Seattle are going to Game 7 with the goalie matchup of Jake Oettinger versus Philipp Grubauer. Carolina is into the Eastern Conference final with the journeyman tandem of Antti Raanta and Freddie Andersen. The highest-paid goalie in the game, Sergei Bobrovsky, started the post-season on the Florida bench behind Alex Lyon. That would be a leap of both faith and logic at this point, but he certainly played well enough to put himself in the conversation. He looked so good that some observers immediately anointed him the obvious starter for next season. His positioning looked strong, and it was refreshing to see a Leafs goalie use a more efficient, economical style in the blue paint. Woll seemed unflappable after being thrust into service following an injury to Samsonov in Game 3. The 24-year-old Woll, a goalie the Leafs have spent seven years trying to develop, won Game 4 against the Panthers to keep the team alive, then played very well in Game 5 only to end up the loser in a controversial conclusion to the series. But with chatter already started about re-signing Samsonov as a restricted free agent this summer, Joseph Woll arrived on the scene to, in many minds, change everything. Ilya Samsonov’s brilliant performance in the Game 6 overtime victory over the Lightning seemed to clinch his status as the team’s No. If there was one position on the Maple Leafs that changed the most between the triumphant end of the Tampa series and the disappointing end of the Florida series, it was between the pipes.
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