Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Saves Needed In Toronto

12/30/2023 at 6:50am EST

from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,

Enough is enough.

Uncle.

Ilya Samsonov and the Toronto Maple Leafs need a break from each other.

To keep trotting out the goaltender who opened the season as the club's Number 1 option is to ask your fans to close their eyes and cross your fingers on the opposition's every scoring chance.

It's asking your skaters to score six.

It's asking your coach to watch valuable standings points slip through fingers. Or, rather, through legs, under arms and over heads.

Sheldon Keefe surely has spoken to his general manager, Brad Treliving, privately about the matter multiple times.

But it's telling how desperate the Samsonov situation became Friday night, following Toronto's second 6-5 overtime loss to the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets, that Keefe politely requested his boss do something about the cavern in the crease.

"Mistakes get magnified when you don't get saves," Keefe told reporters at Nationwide Arena.

"It’s the NHL. We need saves, we need points, and we need wins, so I’m sure Tre is going to consider everything."

continued

Below are the game highlights.

OlderThanChelios

To keep trotting out the goaltender who opened the season as the club's Number 1 option is to ask your fans to close their eyes and cross your fingers on the opposition's every scoring chance.

It's asking your skaters to score six.

It's asking your coach to watch valuable standings points slip through fingers. Or, rather, through legs, under arms and over heads.


He could be talking about Husso, and Reimer too. But Samsonov is different in one regard. He's lost six games in OT. That's definitely not good.

But what's Treliving going to do? He's got this year's 1st-rounder, but not next year's and no 2nd-rounders for the next three drafts. And he has zero cap space.

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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