Leafs heading into the season without clear starting goalie
There’s an old saying in hockey that the Toronto Maple Leafs might be learning this season: if you’ve got two starting goalies, you don’t have any.
It’s a saying often used in other sports as well for high-profile positions: point guards, quarterbacks, or high-leverage pitchers in baseball.
There’s no hard-and-fast rule or requirements that you need a regular goalie to rely on to succeed in the NHL, though it’s generally expected that one goalie will shoulder the load come playoff time.
And with the Leafs just over a week away from their regular-season opener, the franchise is set to head into the 2024-25 campaign without a true number-one, bonafide starting goalie with a history of NHL success as the top guy.
New signing Anthony Stolarz — fresh off a Stanley Cup win with the Florida Panthers — heads into his eighth NHL season with his fifth NHL franchise. But despite having spent quite a bit of time in the league, he’s actually only suited up for 108 games across his career, never once suiting up for more than 27 games in a single season.
Since being drafted eight years ago by the Leafs, Joseph Woll has played just 36 NHL games. At age 26, he’s not quite in the make-or-break stage of his career — many goalies have late peaks in the modern NHL — but he definitely doesn’t have as much runway left as he might’ve earlier in his professional hockey journey.
Woll has played just once for the Leafs in the preseason, though Toronto head coach Craig Berube says he’s planning on using him a bit more over the team’s final two exhibition games this Thursday and Saturday against the Detroit Red Wings.
“He is going to get another game. He is going to get more work. I am not worried about it right now,” Berube told reporters Monday. “It has nothing to do with anything [like his health]. Don’t read into anything like that. It is the plan.”
And whether it’s Woll, Stolarz, or both, somebody’s going to have to play more games than they ever have in a single NHL campaign.
But while some teams might have just two NHL-quality goalies fighting for a roster spot, the Leafs also have two-time Stanley Cup winner Matt Murray in the mix as well. While Murray hasn’t played much over the last three seasons due to various injuries, he’s still fighting to show he belongs in the NHL.
“I still have a lot to give, it’s competition. I think I just got to bring everything I have every day, to leave it all out there, and let the rest take care of itself,” Murray said last month.
Toronto gets their season going a week tomorrow against the Montreal Canadiens. Only time will tell exactly how their goaltending puzzle goes in that game, and then over the next seven months as the team grinds their way through an 82-game regular season.
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