Monday: The press release had conspicuously left out the word “future” that the Maple Leafs had been including in their other ELC announcements, and CapFriendly now lists Woll as starting his contract this season. That means the goaltender will burn the first year and become a restricted free agent in the summer of 2021.
Sunday: The Toronto Maple Leafs announced they have signed Boston College goaltender Joseph Woll to an three-year, entry-level contract. The highly-regarded prospect, a third-round pick out of the 2016 draft, gives them a powerful one-two punch (along with Ian Scott) of stud goalie prospects in their pipeline.
The 20-year-old Woll just wrapped up his junior season with the Eagles and has improved in each of the three years as he has been BC’s full-time goaltender since his freshman campaign. Despite the team’s struggles this year as Woll posted a record of 13-21-3, he put up solid numbers, including a 2.41 GAA and a .919 save percentage. He also played internationally several times, including leading Team USA to a bronze finish at the 2018 World Junior Championships and a gold medal in 2016.
There were some questions whether the Missouri native would sign with Toronto or stay on for his final year. Many suspected that he would sign with the Maple Leafs as Boston College already received a commitment from top goaltending prospect Spencer Knight to attend there, which could have been a complicated tandem situation. However, at age 20 and ready to play in the AHL, the Maple Leafs could keep him playing professionally without any problems for three years, giving Toronto the much-needed goaltending depth at that position at the lower levels. That’s not even including Scott, who is also expected to arrive in Toronto’s system next year as well.
At 6-foot-4, Woll has the size that many NHL teams covet in their goaltending prospects, but is also great at positioning himself, which is one of the big reasons for his success.
Here’s the problem. There are “going for it.”You let 2 established NHL goaltenders walk in October where you could have traded Sparks. The coach doesn’t have a lot of confidence in him. He’s the “future”. Yet you have the two best non NHL goalies NOT in the league. Again,poor planning. The one positive is that your long term contracts have the players signing them at younger ages. Too bad one is not a d man.
I don’t know if that’s true about Woll and Scott. They might be up there but they are far from the best two.
While I miss having McElhinney backing up Andersen I understand why they had to let him go. While Sparks hasn’t exactly impressed anyone he’s still young enough to have an upside. You have to play him in order to find out exactly what you have. As for letting Pickard go, no problems there. He hasn’t proven anything anywhere yet and he isn’t exactly impressing anyone this year. So as far the goaltending moves go, they may not have been popular but calling it poor planning would be a stretch.
JD what would you know your a sens fan!
JD it doesn’t say they are the best two. However, they are two of the best goaltending prospects the Buds have had since…dare I say it…Tukka Rask.
First comment coldbeer. There’s so many top goalie prospects right now I don’t think you could really make a good case for anybody that stands alone.
JD ; slow night no sens game? No March Madness. Don’t know the guy from whole in the ground but beer is absolutely right on this one. You’ll have to forgive him beer his retinas are burned from watching sens games.
No JD is right, you can’t say these two are the top two goalie prospects as there are so many with huge upside. Think Sorokin, Shestyorkin, Primeau
I don’t know what the problem is. You can always trade away what you don’t need. You can never have to many good players.