Woll Injured In Win Over Carolina

As has been a constant with the Toronto Maple Leafs this season, the injury bug has become a factor in their fortunes. The Leafs treaded water while team captain Auston Matthews and top liner Matthew Knies were out, and thanks to the play of waiver claim Troy Stecher, have been able to survive the losses of righty blueliners Brandon Carlo and Chris Tanev. Where Toronto was fortunate was between the pipes, where Joseph Woll stepped in just four days after Anthony Stolarz was injured in Boston. 

Woll may have saved the Leafs season, going 4-3-1, with a 2.30 GAA and .927 save % in eight starts, including three wins during Toronto’s six-game road swing, but the workload of starting all but one of the games since November 15th came back to bite the club, as Woll left the 5-1 victory over Carolina on Thursday with a lower body injury. 

Bobby McMann scored twice, Scott Laughton, Knies, and Matthews added singles for the Leafs, Woll made 22 stops before being relieved by backup Dennis Hildeby in the win, the club’s third straight and fourth on the road swing, which has the club just two points behind third-place Montreal in the Atlantic Division. 

Leafs head coach Craig Berube did not have an update on Woll’s condition after the game, but the goalie was shaking and stretching his left leg after making a save in the second period and stayed in the crease until intermission. 

“We’ll see where he’s at,” Berube said after the game. “This stuff happens, you just handle it, you tell (Hildeby) he’s going in, and he did a great job for us.”

Toronto returned home late Thursday night/early Friday morning, and according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, it is expected that Woll will undergo imaging to determine the extent of the injury, which the Leafs hope is not serious. In the short term, Hildeby will be the likely starter in the return home against the Canadiens on Saturday night, and Artur Akhtyamov, who was called up after Stolarz to back up Hildeby before Woll’s return, will likely be recalled on Friday. 

Berube was asked after the game about Stolarz and indicated that he has not skated in over three weeks since his upper-body injury in Boston on November 11, which depending on the prognosis of Woll’s injury, could leave the Leafs without both of their tandem starters. 

This could result in GM Brad Treliving scouring the waiver wire for a goaltender or a trade to plug a short-term hole, but there has to be some criticism pointed at the Leafs coaching and medical staff for the handling of both Stolarz and Woll this season. Each goalie has had injury issues throughout their careers, and has become more susceptible to getting hurt when playing a heavy workload and getting fatigued. With Stolarz, the plan appeared to be to play him every game except back-to-backs, when they would start Cayden Primeau. 

That resulted in Stolarz starting 13 of 16 games in just over a month, and likely was a factor in the 31-year-old getting hurt. Woll played just two games in the AHL after an abbreviated ramp-up after missing all of training camp due to a personal leave of absence, and he started eight games in just over three weeks. In spite of Berube saying he has confidence in Hildeby, there have been two instances this season where the club has shown a lack in confidence that he could handle a heavier workload than a normal backup and it has resulted in an injury to their de facto starter. 

These are no longer the days when Martin Brodeur, or to use a Leafs example, Andrew Raycroft, start 70+ games. My assertion to find out if Woll can be the full-time starter came with the realization that he will need a backup like Stolarz or someone else to play 30-35 games, but because Toronto was in desperation mode and had to push Woll as they did Stolarz to get back in the playoff race, they now may have to go the next few weeks or longer without both. The Leafs playoff fate may rest on the big shoulders of “The Beast”.