Maple Leafs Announce Goaltender Joseph Woll Has Taken Indefinite Leave of Absence
Photo credit: John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images
The Toronto Maple Leafs announced that goaltender Joseph Woll has been granted a leave of absence until further notice in order to deal with some personal matters.
In a shocking bit of news on Tuesday morning, Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving announced to the media that goaltender Joseph Woll would be taking an indefinite leave of absence from the team in order to deal with some personal matters.
What the Maple Leafs Said in Their Announcement
The Leafs GM was sure to note however this has nothing to do with substance abuse or anything detrimental to Woll or his reputation, and sounds more like personal matters.
The team did not specify what the issue Woll was dealing with but clearly, that's for the goaltender to know and not for the general public, and while we can speculate; what matters is he gets through this with support from teammates, coaches, and fans.
Woll has been vocal in the past about stressing the need for strong mental health support and advocates strongly to raise awareness; including raising over $80,000 after donating to CAMH after every home win.
What This Means for Toronto's Goaltending Situation
It was expected for the most part that Woll would be participating in Toronto's preseason game against Ottawa on Tuesday however that's clearly not the case, and with his absence an indefinite one; it leaves a lot of questions.
Surely we know that Anthony Stolarz is now the #1 by default, and depending on how long it takes Woll to get back into form both physically and mentally, he'll be depended upon heavily so fingers crossed his health stays intact.
Now the team needs to make sure Dennis Hildeby is up to the task to back up Stolarz if Woll is out long-term, although the team could turn to Artur Akhtyamov who was very solid against Ottawa and a lot of their top players.
It's a really disheartening update considering that Woll is so important to the team and their success, he's still incredibly young and is yet to truly break out, and this setback is pretty unfair all things considered.
He ended up missing the first month of the season in 2024-25, and that could be the same story this season.
In 42 games last season (41 starts), Woll posted a 27-14-1 record with a 2.73 GAA and .909 SV%.
But all that matters at this point in time is that Woll is given the time to heal and work through whatever he's dealing with regardless of how long that takes.
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