Joseph Woll gave the Toronto Maple Leafs a lot of hope when he took over the net while his team was down 3-1 in the best-of-seven first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins last spring.
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But a back injury suffered on the very last play of Game 6 forced Woll to be unavailable for a seventh and deciding game.
“It was obviously not a great experience,” Woll said following his first practice of training camp for this season. “But as much as we can talk about that, I’d honestly prefer to talk about now and put game seven in the past.”
Ilya Samsonov, now with the Vegas Golden Knights, ended up starting Game 7 and Toronto was eliminated from the postseason after a 2-1 loss. But Woll has every reason to look forward to the future.
Despite being limited to just 36 NHL games spread over the last three seasons, the Leafs saw enough in the goaltender to award him a three-year extension worth $11 million, a deal that kicks after this upcoming season.
“It’s pretty awesome to know that they have faith in me and I think that’s something I was really proud of,” Woll said. ” I think that’s something you have to earn from staff and from players and from coaches. But it’s just something you have to continue to earn. So I’m looking forward to this year to continue to earn that faith and that trust. And I’m just going to try to do everything I can to help this team.”
Woll has a long laundry list of injuries since breaking into the NHL. An ankle injury sustained in December of last season forced Woll to miss months. In the fall of 2022, he went through a shoulder injury. But when he has played, Woll has put up numbers. He has a career .912 save percentage in 36 games. He posted a .932 save percentage in four playoff games in 2023 and he was a contributing reason the Leafs forced a Game 7 against the Bruins.
During the Leafs’ season-ending media availability, Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving addressed the elephant in the room over Woll.
“I’ve got faith in Joe. The biggest question about Joe is he’s getting injured a lot. We have to dig into that,” Treliving said back in May. “Sometimes that happens, sometimes bad luck happens….