Leafs goaltender leaves morning skate with apparent injury, Keefe provides immediate update
The Toronto Maple Leafs are scheduled to take on the Carolina Hurricanes tonight for their annual St. Patrick's Day game at Scotiabank Arena. The Leafs come into the game on a mini two-game win-streak.
The Leafs had not officially announced their starting goalie for tonight yet, but it was presumed Ilya Samsonov would get the nod amid a sensational run of play. However, when the Russian netminder tweaked something at practice and needed to leave immediately, it left things up in the air.
Samsonov is 18-5-6 on the season for the Leafs and has posted a 3.06 GAA and .889 save percentage. While those numbers are not great, they are far better than they were in the first half of the season thanks to some fantastic play since returning to the team in mid-January. In fact, Samsonov has posted a collective .912 SV% in his last 15 games.
Thankfully, Sheldon Keefe met with the media after practice and was able to eliminate any speculation, confirming that Samsonov will indeed play tonight.
"Sammy's fine he'll play tonight. Leave me alone," Keefe said with an enormous smile.
Had Samsonov been sidelined, the Leafs would still have had Joseph Woll and Martin Jones ready to step up, but with how well Samsonov has been playing of late, it's a pretty big relief to know that he's okay and that he won't miss any time. The conversation of whether the Leafs should err on the side of caution and give him the night off, though, is another story.
| POLL | ||
MARS 16 | 505 ANSWERS Leafs goaltender leaves morning skate with apparent injury, Keefe provides immediate update Does Samsonov's injury scare concern you? | ||
| Yes, he's playing well | 233 | 46.1 % |
| No, we have Woll and Jones ready and waiting | 272 | 53.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
