Heading into the season, the Toronto Maple Leafs goaltending situation was a question mark at best. But so far this year, the tandem of Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov, when healthy, have been nothing short of spectacular. This prompted Rink Wide Toronto to post a fan vote via Twitter on how the Leafs should deploy their goaltending. The response that received an overwhelming vote of 84% was for the tandem option, in which they go back and forth with the net-minders.
Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. So far this season, Samsonov leads the league in save percentage (.939%) and goals against average (1.70). Matt Murray has been impressive as well, posting a .924 save percentage along with the best shut out performance seen, according to the expected saves stat, since the stat started being tracked.
Additionally, given the injury history of Murray, perhaps it makes more sense to limit his total games played. We should also consider that Samsonov is a young goaltender who is still developing his game at 25-years-old, and that he has already been injured once this season as well. We have also seen goaltenders in the past perform very well while playing less games, only to fold once given a full time starter role (Vesa Toskola comes to mind). Perhaps limiting their games played does have its advantages.
But one question this debate is destined to spark; who should start game one of the playoffs for the Maple Leafs? Traditional wisdom would suggest that you need one starting goaltender, like the Bolts have in Andrei Vasilevskiy. When Tampa won back-to-back cups in 2020 & 2021, he played in every single game. However, last season the Avalanche used a different model in net. Starting goaltender Darcy Kuemper recorded ten wins during the teams Championship run. Meanwhile, albeit due to Kuempers injury, Pavel Francouz recorded the other six wins for the Avalanche on route to the teams Cup win. This was not the first time we saw a Cup winning team use this model. When the Penguins won back-to-back Cups in 2016 & 2017, Matt Murray played most of the Pens playoff games in the 2016. The following year, he and Marc-Andre Fleury shared the crease for the playoffs. That said, some injuries did factor into that decision. But this does not change the fact that multiple teams have won a Championship riding on the backs of two goaltenders during the playoffs. This is something the Leafs may be looking to do this season.
