The Maple Leafs need Ilya Samsonov to find his game in Joseph Woll’s absence

The Toronto Maple Leafs were just about to start practice on Tuesday afternoon when Ilya Samsonov left the ice and approached Neill Davidson, one of the team’s two assistant athletic therapists. After a brief conversation, Samsonov moved along, stopping for another short chat with Rich Rotenberg, the team’s director of high performance.

Samsonov didn’t practice that day because of illness.

He returned to practice the following day but wasn’t well enough to back up Joseph Woll in Ottawa on Thursday night. That job went to Martin Jones. It remains to be seen whether Samsonov will be up to playing against Nashville on Saturday, or whether the team will need to hand Jones his first start as a Leaf.

The bigger, thornier question moving forward for the Leafs: Can Samsonov find his game again with Woll out for the foreseeable future?

About the only good(ish) thing about Samsonov’s season to date is his 4-1-3 record.

But, of course, that’s not indicative of his performance.

Samsonov has given up 31 goals to this point, five more than expected. His .878 save percentage is fourth-worst in the league among goalies with a similar workload.

Last season, his first with the Leafs, Samsonov led the league with an .882 save percentage on high-danger shots. Regression has hit hard this season: Samsonov ranks close to the bottom of the NHL with a .769 clip.

Samsonov has had a particularly hard time stopping pucks on the penalty kill, yielding nine goals on only 43 shots for a near-the-bottom-of-the-league save percentage of .791. (Woll is at .917.) Some of that was the Leafs’ penalty kill struggling early. Some of it was Samsonov.

In just about every appearance so far this season, Samsonov has surrendered at least one squeaker, the kind of goal that needs to be stopped and was stopped, for the most part, last season. Like this goal in Samsonov’s last start two weeks ago in Chicago:

The Leafs lost that game and Samsonov hasn’t started since.

That was the thing with Samsonov last season: He stopped the shots he was supposed to stop most nights. There weren’t a lot of grimace-inducing goals against.

The Leafs had no idea what they would get from Matt Murray, but they knew what they were getting with Samsonov. He was steady that way. All in all, he gave up 96 goals – 21 less than expected. Also notable: Samsonov went 19-3-3 at home, with a .927 save percentage.

Even more notable than that: Samsonov outplayed (just barely but still) Andrei Vasilevskiy in the first round of the playoffs.

That’s the guy the Leafs need not just in Woll’s absence, but beyond that. Committing $3.55 million cap dollars his way isn’t especially appealing otherwise. More of the same and Leafs’ brass could be inclined to send Samsonov elsewhere (as part of a larger deal, perhaps) and use the savings to boost the roster in other ways.

Would the Leafs have to pay an asset to dump his contract?

Is Jones, at this stage in his career, a viable enough backup to someone as inexperienced as Woll? Would the Leafs need to acquire someone better? Are the Leafs prepared to place all that responsibility on Woll?

All those questions disappear if Samsonov gets on track and becomes a viable alternative to Woll.

This was always the rub with Samsonov in Washington: He struggled to be the guy.

He didn’t have those expectations in year one as a Leaf. Samsonov had posted an .896 save percentage in the season previous. The Capitals, who spent a first-round pick to land him, opted not to even qualify his contract.

The Leafs took a one-year flier for just under $2 million on the cap.

Samsonov ultimately outplayed a frequently injured Murray and became the guy. The totality of his NHL track record still made him a risky long-term bet, which explains why no long-term contract came about last summer. It took arbitration for the two sides to land on a one-year agreement that will make Samsonov a first-time unrestricted free agent on July 1.

That’s an underplayed aspect of this season for Samsonov: It’s another contract year.

He needs his game to rebound just as much as the Leafs do.

Absent two of their top six defencemen (Timothy Liljegren and Mark Giordano) for the foreseeable future (not to mention, John Klingberg, who’s done for the year) and now, Woll, the guy who had effectively stolen Samsonov’s job, the Leafs will need starrier performances (offensively and defensively) from Auston Matthews, John Tavares, and Mitch Marner. They’ll have to hope that the likes of Jake McCabe, Simon Benoit and William Lagesson don’t break under rising minutes and competition.

But really, what the Leafs need, above all, is for Samsonov to be something like the guy — again.

(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

–Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, and Hockey Reference