Can you feel the love in the air? It’s Valentine’s Day! In honour of the day of love, we will look at some Toronto Maple Leafs players that fans have fallen in love with this season. So let’s get right into it. Enjoy!
The Men Between the Pipes
Like every love story, there are the ups and downs, the good and the bad, the happy and sad (or angry). Well, the same can be said about the Maple Leafs’ fans and the team’s goaltending position. When the goalies are playing well, the fans love it, but when things go south, there isn’t so much love from the fans. As is typical, I am guilty of the same thing; it’s part of being a fan of a team. This is why ‘The Men Between the Pipes’ is the first love story this season. There have been three different goalies to defend the net for the Maple Leafs, all of whom have been given great praise by the team’s support. Let’s start with the youngster, Joseph Woll. He was thought to be the starter this season and was on that path before he suffered a high ankle sprain on Dec. 7, 2023. He was gaining more confidence with every start and truly solidifying himself as the bona fide starter; he had a record of 8-5-1. Sadly, high-ankle sprains are hard to recover from, especially as a goalie, and he has been out of the lineup ever since.
While Leafs Nation awaits the return of Woll, we turned our attention to a struggling Ilya Samsonov. He couldn’t buy a win at the start of the season, and his morale was as low as it has ever been. It looked like we were going to see the end of him in the NHL. On Jan. 1, 2024, the Maple Leafs made the smart decision to send him to the American Hockey League (AHL) to take time and work on himself, mentally. When he was called back up and returned to the lineup on Jan. 14, 2024, against the Detroit Red Wings, it looked like a completely different goalie. The Samsonov from last season, which fans adored, seemed to be back. Since then, he has seemingly returned to his previous form and has won over the hearts of so many Leafs fans again.
Related: 2 Trade Destinations for Maple Leafs’ T.J. Brodie
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In the last love story between the pipes is Martin Jones, the grizzled veteran who started the year as the third goalie and was sent to the AHL to join the Toronto Marlies. He was signed by the Maple Leafs as an insurance goalie, essentially to help when things weren’t going well. That is…
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