Why the Leafs chose to move on from Joseph Woll

There you have it, John Chayka has made his first significant move as the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ general manager. On Tuesday, the Leafs dealt goaltender Joseph Woll and defenseman Simon Benoit to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenseman Emil Andrae, goaltender Samuel Ersson, and a 2026 third-round draft pick.

While it’s not exactly a trade full of household names, many Leafs fans might be curious as to why Toronto would want to offload Woll, who was a homegrown goalie that had already impressed over stretches in the NHL, and is still relatively young for a goalie at 27 years of age.

On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed why the Leafs could feel comfortable moving on from Woll.

Tyler Yaremchuk: On the surface, there are some people kind of going “Why are the Leafs trading Joseph Woll for a package that isn’t all that exciting?” I mean, Sam Ersson had some real significant struggles this season. I do really like Emil Andrae, and when you look at the left side of the Leafs’ blueline, assuming they move on from Morgan Rielly, well that’s a left-shot out the door and you now have (Jake) McCabe, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and Emil Andrae as your three pieces on the left side. That makes sense to me. You get a third-round pick. The other part of this, Hutts, is the Leafs were sitting with a lot of quality goalies in their system, and three of them in (Anthony) Stolarz, Woll, and (Dennis) Hildeby, who would’ve needed waivers next year, so they’re kind of getting ahead of this waivers mess, I suppose. What do you make of the deal?

Carter Hutton: I guess I was a little surprised with Woll being moved out, because I do feel like he has a pretty high ceiling still, at his age and his capability. But, I think you look at the World Championship and how poor he was over there in a situation where you’re with Devin Cooley and you’re supposed to be the guy. It’s a good experience to grow, he doesn’t grow. And then from sources, being a little more high maintenance, being a little bit more of a head case, as a traditional goalie sometimes can be. Then you start to look at the success the Marlies are having with Arthur Akhtyamov and how good he’s been, and he’s 24, and Hildeby had a lot of success.

You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Tuesday’s episode here…