The goalie saga for the Toronto Maple Leafs this season has been something else.
Only 29 games into the 2025-26 campaign, they have deployed four different goaltenders in at least three starts apiece, one of only two teams (the other being Vegas) in that situation this season. The Leafs also have a fifth goalie, Artur Akhtyamov, currently serving as the backup.
At least in my opinion, he should get into a game soon, making Toronto the first five-goalie team of the year.
It seems impossible that an NHL team could have run down two veteran netminders, released a 37-year-old on a professional tryout contract, claimed and then waived a fourth veteran, and recalled two rookies to save the day all in the span of two months. But here we are with Christmas still a couple of weeks away.
Making that chaotic situation even stranger is the fact the Leafs have the second-best save percentage in the league (.934) over the past 11 games, which has been the driving force for their return to respectability in the standings.
Their first 18 games, meanwhile, they had a team save percentage of just .877, one of the worst marks in the league.
If another NHL team has ever had a start to a season like that in the crease, I haven’t seen it.
There’s little debate in hindsight that the Leafs erred in playing Anthony Stolarz too much to open the season. The injury-prone 31-year-old had never started more than last season’s 33 games in the NHL — the equivalent of starting two of every five games — and his body broke down multiple times over the course of his first season in Toronto, regardless.
Joseph Woll went 4-3-1 with a .923 save percentage in eight starts this season before sustaining an injury last week. (Sam Navarro / Imagn Images)
But when Joseph Woll left the team for personal reasons in late September, the Leafs deployed Stolarz again and again, playing him in 12 of the team’s first 15 games, even as his performance wilted significantly. Then he, predictably, went down with yet another injury and has yet to return to the ice, even in practice.
A week later, Woll returned and took over the crease. Despite the fact that he had missed most of training camp and has his own lengthy injury history, he started eight of nine games — in part because he played so well (going 4-3-1 with a .923 save percentage). Then he, too, left with an injury in a win in Carolina last week.
Now, young Swede Dennis Hildeby has taken over in net, and he’s been an even bigger revelation. After two more impressive performances against division rivals Montreal and Tampa Bay, he is 2-2-2 with a .936 save percentage. In a small sample size, he has saved more goals above expected per 60 minutes than any other goalie in the league.
With the Leafs on a 5-1-1 run and climbing the standings, the natural temptation will be to play Hildeby in every game until Woll returns. (We’ve been told this will be within the next week, but with the way Toronto’s injuries have been handled and revealed, we won’t put much stock in that timeline.)
The Leafs don’t have a back-to-back set coming until Dec. 20 and 21 in Nashville and Dallas, nine days from now. On NHL clubs with an established, high-end No. 1, the backup often plays only the second game of a back-to-back set. But it should be pretty clear by now that Toronto does not have that luxury. Not when its two top goalies have never carried that kind of load before and not when they’ve had such injury-marred careers, going back to a young age.
And not when their No. 3 is a 24-year-old who has averaged about 24 regular-season games played the past eight seasons, going back to his time in the Swedish junior system.
Hildeby may not have the injury history of Toronto’s older goalies, but he also hasn’t shown he can play every second night for multiple weeks. Realistically, he should be limited to three or four consecutive starts — at the most — and Thursday’s game against San Jose is start No. 3 in six days.
If Woll’s timeline is going to drag on past Saturday’s game against Edmonton, that should mean Russian youngster Akhtyamov gets his first career start against the Blackhawks on Tuesday. Even though Hildeby has been fantastic. Even though there’s a two-day break between those games. And, yes, even though Akhtyamov has struggled in North America, with an .896 save percentage this season with the AHL Marlies.
If you look around the league these days, few goalies are stringing together five or six starts in a row — never mind asking an untested rookie to do so. Last season, only nine goalies NHL-wide started more than 55 games, meaning more than 70 percent of the league’s teams were playing their No. 1 only twice a week on average.
That ratio likely goes up even more this season with how condensed the Olympic-year schedule is, with more back-to-backs and overnight travel than in a typical year. It’s not the 1980s or ’90s anymore, when the likes of Grant Fuhr appeared in nearly every game. If anything, this is a position going the other way, with tandems and trios becoming the new norm.
Besides, the worst-case scenario for the Leafs is that Akhtyamov lets in a bad goal or two and they miss out on a point or two against an out-of-conference opponent such as the Blackhawks.
But if they continue to ride Hildeby every game, he could go down with an injury, too. And then there’s even more pressure put on Woll to play a ton when he returns.
That doesn’t make any sense, even for a team (and coach) desperate for wins right now.
