Maple Leafs goalie duo receives shockingly poor ranking ahead of 2024-25 season
The Toronto Maple Leafs' goaltending duo of Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz was given a shocking ranking in recent article from The Athletic.
For better or worse, the Maple Leafs will head into next season with Stolarz and Woll as their tandem with a hopefully healthy Matt Murray waiting in the wings to provide relief if needed.
The Leafs are betting on the potential that Woll has shown in short stints during his time with the Leafs and that Stolarz will be able to provide enough stability and veteran experience to keep Woll fresh and healthy and challenge him for starts to keep some healthy competition going to help motivate them both.
Woll is entering the final year of a 3-year extension that will see him earn $766K before his 3-year extension kicks in for the 2025-26 season. Stolarz, fresh off of a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panther will be with the Leafs for at least the next two seasons, earning $2.5M per season.
Woll has just 36 games of regular season NHL experience under his belt thanks to a number of injuries, and Stolarz has 109 regular season games of NHL experience. It is a very inexperienced duo and it is that inexperience that hurt the tandem's ranking in The Athletic's latest piece ranking team goaltending.
At a consensus between Sean McIndoe, Scott Wheeler and Jesse Granger, the Leafs ranking in the bottom third of the league, 25th overall to be exact, for a few reasons.
Their future, while fans and the organization are high on Dennis Hildeby and Artur Akhtyamov, is ranked as 23rd.
While the Leafs' inexperience throughout the organization is something that currently hinders their ranking, at least they aren't spending much for that inexperience.
With the Leafs extremely top-heavy in terms of their "Core Four" taking up so much of the cap, the Leafs have been unable to really consider a true top goaltender (although there were rumours they made an offer for Jacob Markstrom this summer), which has forced them to bargain hunt on potential and reclamation projects. Of course, these rankings can change drastically depending on the play of everyone, but if last season is any indication, the Leafs do have some very solid home-grown talent on the way for a long-term fix.
Source: The Athletic Ranking each NHL team's current and future goaltending outlook, Part 1: The bottom 10
| POLL | ||
23 JUILLET | 501 ANSWERS Maple Leafs goalie duo receives shockingly poor ranking ahead of 2024-25 season Where would you rank the Leafs' goaltending coming into this season? | ||
| Top 5 | 49 | 9.8 % |
| Top 10 | 170 | 33.9 % |
| Top 22 | 210 | 41.9 % |
| Bottom 10 | 72 | 14.4 % |
| List of polls | ||
