It wasn’t that long ago that the Toronto Maple Leafs seemed to crumble when their starting goaltender got hurt.
Remember in 2022 when the club signed Keith Petruzzelli after Ilya Samsonov got hurt? He had previously been on an AHL deal with the Toronto Marlies, and didn’t have another goalie at their disposal to work with Erik Kallgren with Matt Murray also on the sidelines. Yeah, those were ugly days.
But GM Brad Treliving has worked on building the team’s goaltending depth – and with Joseph Woll injured to start the season, the team is actually in good shape early on.
For starters, defending Stanley Cup champion Anthony Stolarz has been strong since suiting for the first time during the preseason. While it seemed like the plan was to have him and Woll split games – especially with neither having experience as a No. 1 in the NHL – there was a path for Stolarz to take over starter duties based on how well his advanced analytics looked in Florida. Stolarz is seventh among goaltenders with at least two starts with a goals saved above expected of 2.63. It’s an extremely small sample size, but Stolarz has been quite solid early on.
But it goes much deeper than that. In fact, all of Toronto’s healthy goaltenders have managed to find success early in the season.
It continues with Dennis Hildeby, who beat the New Jersey Devils in his NHL debut last week. It was a strong defensive effort for the boys in blue, but Hildeby looked as good as you could ask for. The Maple Leafs took the 6-foot-7 Swedish monster with the 122nd overall pick in 2022 as a triple overager, but he has quickly emerged as potential long-term option in net. He stole the Marlies’ starting gig away from Petruzzelli last year and will likely return there once Woll is healthy, especially since he’s waiver-exempt. But at this stage in his development, the 23-year-old is already off to an excellent start and it’ll be exciting to see if he can take the Marlies on his back once he returns.
Back at Coca-Cola Coliseum, two-time Stanley Cup champion Matt Murray won his season debut against San Diego on Saturday. It was just his second win since the 2022-23, having only played in three games with the Marlies last year due to injuries. For now, the goal is for Toronto to keep getting Murray reps in hopes of potentially having him healthy enough to serve with the big club as part of a three-goalie rotation, but he has played over 30 games in a year since 2019-20 when he was in Pittsburgh.
What about Artur Akhtyamov? The 22-year-old made his AHL debut on Sunday, making 37 saves in an excellent showing against the Gulls. The Russian keeper had some good showings with AK Bars Kazan, and this year was more about having the Leafs’ development staff get a closer look at the 2020 fourth-rounder. So far, he’s off to an excellent start, and it’ll be interesting to see if he can challenge Hildeby for more starts down the line as the team looks to get their young goalies as much playing time as possible.
There’s also Slava Peksa, who is looking to rebound after an ugly first year in the ECHL in which he had a 5-11-1 record. He’s still with the Marlies for now, but with the ECHL season starting soon, he could be loaned out to work with veteran Jon Gillies in Cincinatti.
We don’t have a big enough sample size in any of the three leagues to get a good grasp as to whether it’s worth believing in early season success. But the results are looking good early on, and missing Woll hasn’t been a problem just yet. Perhaps that allows him to take more time to get fully clear and healthy, especially since he hasn’t had an injury-free season in his pro career to date.
There’s also the question of what happens when Woll is back. Will Murray get called up like Martin Jones was last year and stick around? Or will he keep working with the Marlies’ young keepers as somewhat of a mentor? Managing the cap space to make that happen will be a bit difficult. They signed Murray to provide extra depth, so you want him playing – but not at the expense of the younger guys you’re hoping will be part of the future.
Murray only makes $875,000, which is a positive, but if they don’t move Timothy Liljegren and his $3 million AAV deal, they could be in a bit of a pickle once Calle Jarnkrok, Jani Hakanpaa and Connor Dewar are back. It’s all just a play-by-ear situation, in the end.
However, the fact that, when everyone’s healthy, they have four goaltenders with NHL experience is a great thing. Heck, the Colorado Avalanche look like they have zero right now. That’s an incredible position to be in, and why, for the first time in so long, Leafs fans can breathe easy when one of their keepers goes down.
