RALEIGH, N.C. — While his teammates closed out the Carolina Hurricanes in the third period on Thursday night to cap an impressive road trip, Joseph Woll walked through the underbelly of the Lenovo Center in workout gear to a space reserved for the visiting team.
He was in no obvious discomfort.
The 27-year-old was accompanied by Todd Bean, the Maple Leafs massage therapist and osteopathic practitioner. Which suggests he was headed for treatment on the injury that knocked him out of Thursday’s game, perhaps a soft-tissue injury like the groin tightness that kept him out for three weeks last fall.
Woll didn’t come out for the third
was shaking his left leg after this save pic.twitter.com/vTXz7XqfP0
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) December 5, 2025
Craig Berube said the Leafs would have more information on the severity of Woll’s undisclosed injury on Friday (an off-day for the team), but clearly, with this team’s vague policy of injury disclosure, that information won’t be disclosed.
Which makes it a mystery when exactly Woll, playing the best hockey of his NHL career, will return.
“You never want to see that,” Auston Matthews said of Woll’s exit afterward. “We’re all hoping it’s nothing too serious.”
It’s just the latest nightmare in the Leafs’ crease this season.
It was just over three weeks ago that similar events played out in Boston. That night, Anthony Stolarz, in the midst of the busiest workload of his NHL career with Woll unavailable, left a game against the Bruins under mysterious circumstances after the second period.
Afterward, Berube said the injury wasn’t serious and that Stolarz might even start the next game.
He hasn’t been seen since. He hasn’t skated since, for that matter, and earlier this week, Berube said there had been “no real improvement” on an injury the Leafs still have yet to disclose (what it is and how it happened).
In other words, Stolarz’s return isn’t coming anytime soon. It seems more likely than not that the Leafs play out the rest of 2025 without him.
When he returns in 2026 is a mystery.
The Stolarz drama came a good seven weeks after Woll left the team in training camp. His leave of absence lasted until the middle of November.
Woll’s season debut on Nov. 15 in Chicago came four nights after Stolarz left the game in Boston.
The Leafs still have yet to have both Stolarz and Woll available to play in the same game this season, and won’t anytime soon. It’s fair to wonder if that day will come at all this season with the way things have played out so far.
“It sucks obviously,” Matthew Knies said of the Woll injury. “He’s been the backbone of our team for this road trip, carrying us through it all. You don’t want to see him go down like that.”
Woll’s performance upon his return to the team is what makes this all the more distressing for the Leafs.
He was performing exceptionally well.
Woll was the primary reason the Leafs were ahead through two periods in Carolina. He had been outdueling former Leafs No. 1 goalie Frederik Andersen in a manner that had Hurricanes fans calling repeatedly for backup Brandon Bussi.
In the eight games he played, including against the Hurricanes, Woll boasted a .927 save percentage.
Joseph Woll was thriving before the injury. (James Guillory / Imagn Images)
The team in front of him was playing better, but Woll was also confidently turning down the best looks that came his way.
There was reason to be a little wary of his workload, though, especially in light of his absence from most of training camp.
Woll had started eight of nine possible games, with Dennis Hildeby stepping in to start only on the second night of a back-to-back last week in Pittsburgh.
On the one hand, it was understandable.
The Leafs’ season was dangling by a thread and Woll was playing exceptionally well and leading a turnaround. And yet, he was also a goaltender who had suffered a lot of injuries over the years and his usual alternate was completely unavailable.
A busy workload — which became necessary because of the poor play of Cayden Primeau — may have contributed to Stolarz’s eventual absence.
The team was aware of this risk.
Asked about managing Woll’s workload before a game in Montreal on Nov. 22, Woll’s fourth of the season, Berube said he wasn’t concerned, not yet.
“But it’s obviously in the back of my mind for sure,” he said.
Berube noted that the Leafs had a three-day break before their next game. “But then it gets busy,” the Leafs coach said, “so we gotta be managing his load for sure.”
They opted to start Woll in five of six games on the road trip.
Asked Wednesday afternoon about starting Dennis Hildeby either against the Hurricanes or Canadiens on Saturday, Berube said it was possible, but “I don’t know.”
Now, the Leafs have no choice.
Hildeby will start Saturday at home against Montreal and it’s inconceivable he’ll stay in there for each of the six games that follow.
The crease belongs to the 24-year-old with nine career starts. He figures to be backed up by Artur Akhtyamov, who has yet to play an NHL game.
Hildeby found out from Woll that he was needed to close out Thursday’s game. It was his fourth time appearing in relief this season, one more game than he’s started.
For what it’s worth, Hildeby has looked solid in the net when he’s been in there. And the silver lining of all of this is that the Leafs will get to find out what they have in the goaltender they selected with the 122nd pick in the 2022 draft.
But none of this is great, obviously.
“This stuff happens,” Berube said. “We just handle it.”