{"id":551731,"date":"2026-04-13T10:24:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:24:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551731\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T10:24:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T10:24:17","slug":"goaltending-injury-concerns-could-put-wrinkle-in-maple-leafs-offseason-retool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551731\/","title":{"rendered":"Goaltending injury concerns could put wrinkle in Maple Leafs offseason retool"},"content":{"rendered":"

The best ability is availability, and this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> goaltending duo of Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz haven\u2019t been able to stay healthy.With an offseason of change on the horizon, and a fresh face coming in to execute a retool, it\u2019s going to be very intriguing to see what kind of trade conversations take place around Woll and Stolarz.<\/a> Both goaltenders have dealt with injury concerns the past couple of seasons, and most recently, Stolarz went down just minutes into Wednesday\u2019s game against the Washington Capitals with a lower-body injury. The 32-year-old appeared to injure his leg stretching to make a save, and if surgery is required, there\u2019s potential Stolarz misses the start of training camp. It essentially could take him completely off the table for being a trade candidate.<\/p>\n

As for Woll, he\u2019s produced a 15-15-7 record this season through 38 appearances, including\u00a0 a 3.29 goals against average, and .901 save percentage. At 27 years old, and a $3.6 million cap hit the next two seasons, it makes a lot of sense for the Leafs to hold onto Woll. Even though, it\u2019s very likely teams would offer the Maple Leafs more in a trade than if Stolarz was included.<\/p>\n

Woll doesn\u2019t have any trade protection on his contract until July, 2027, so if the new general manager comes in and gets blown away by a trade offer, he\u2019ll need to consider it. The Maple Leafs have giant gaps in their lineup. Auston Matthews needs a right winger, the third line needs a new shut-down centre, and Toronto\u2019s blueline needs to be completely reshaped with defencemen who can move the puck. There\u2019s plenty of holes to fill, and the incoming GM will have to strongly consider moving on from his goaltending depth in order to help upgrade this roster. Even if it means Woll has to be the one to go.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s certainly a world where teams come calling for Dennis Hildeby instead of either Woll and Stolarz, and the Maple Leafs would be wise to listen. Hildeby, 24, leads Toronto\u2019s goaltending group with a .910 save percentage, which is quite impressive considering how bad the Maple Leafs\u2019 defensive structure has been this season. Hildeby has a ton of potential, he\u2019s under contract for $841,667 for two more seasons, and will be a pending restricted free agent heading into the 2028-29 season.<\/p>\n

Without a doubt Hildeby is one of the Leafs best trade assets, but this shouldn\u2019t be a case of a new GM coming in and having his mind already made up on which goaltender should be shipped out of town. Instead, they need to come in, and see where other teams interest lie, and try to maximize their return to address an area of concern in the Maple Leafs lineup. There\u2019s surely a risk involved as Hildeby has a ton of potential, and it would be crushing for Leafs Nation to see him get shipped out of town, flourish, and have the player coming back in the deal not pan out as hoped. It\u2019s not like the Leafs have a strong history of winning goaltending trades.<\/p>\n

Toronto\u2019s new GM needs to be very openminded when it comes to his goaltending trade candidates. Stolarz, Woll and Hildeby are all going to be part of conversations, and it certainly feels like one of them is getting traded. Add in 24-year-old Artur Akhtyamov, who was the Leafs\u2019 best player against the New York Islanders on Thursday<\/a> in his first career NHL start, and it\u2019s without a doubt the strongest position of depth for Leafs\u2019 trade assets.<\/p>\n

Depending on how long Stolarz is out, it\u2019s certainly going to impact trade discussions. The good thing is the Maple Leafs have three other goaltenders who are on other team\u2019s radars, so if the new GM is going to add significant talent for either the top six, or top-two defence pairings, it\u2019s quite likely we see one of Hildeby, Woll, or Akhtyamov included in the trade package.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s just hope this doesn\u2019t turn out to be another rendition of the Tuukka Rask trade.<\/p>\n

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\nFollow along @Tablefood hall or\u00a0tablefoodhall.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The best ability is availability, and this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs goaltending duo of Joseph Woll and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[5,20,5172,4,66,31,5171],"class_list":{"0":"post-551731","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-maple-leafs","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-maple-leafs","10":"tag-mapleleafs","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","14":"tag-torontomapleleafs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116396915417193182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}