Do the Toronto Maple Leafs have a goaltending controversy?

Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed the Maple Leafs’ crease on the latest episode of Daily Faceoff Live.

Tyler Yaremchuk: On Saturday night the Toronto Maple Leafs kind of looked dead in the water against the Tampa Bay Lightning in their first meeting since the playoffs last year. Ilya Samsonov was pulled just 12 minutes into the game, he only faced four shots, he gave up three goals. Joseph Woll steps in and he’s lights out and leads the Leafs on a comeback in overtime and stopped all 29 shots that he faced and now has Leafs fans wondering, is there a little bit of a goalie controversy brewing in Toronto?

Frank Seravalli: I hate the phrase “goalie controversy”. Is it even a controversy? You have not really a huge gap in ability between these two guys. Is one paid more and have more pedigree? Yes, of course. But does that mean he should just get 50+ starts this year and Joe Woll should sit there and wait? No, it should be a meritocracy and based on who’s playing the best at the moment and right now there isn’t even a shadow of doubt as to who is the better goaltender in this exact moment in time for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And the Leafs have been building to this moment for a while with Joe Woll. He was signed to this contract, this is the second year of it, the first year of the one-way portion of it for this exact reason. This was supposed to be the moment that he arrived on the NHL scene. They’ve taken their time, they’ve developed him correctly and now he’s a guy who at every level as he’s progressed along the way. He continues to play better and better, you look at his numbers last year. Four games in the Stanley Cup playoffs, .915 save percentage and he’s only one year younger than Ilya Samsonov.

I see no reason why this isn’t a 1A/1B type conversation for the rest of the year, let alone just Woll coming in relief of Samsonov in Tampa then getting the next start against the Washington Capitals. That was the planned schedule and even though he played the bulk of the minutes against the Lightning, he’s now going to get that opportunity to back it up with another performance against the Caps.

And so, I like where the Leafs are at. I love what Sheldon Keefe said, three goals on four shots is unacceptable, its the reason they needed to make the change and now they’re going with Woll.