Last season the Leafs entered the campaign with 6 NHL contracted goalies, 3 of which had NHL experience and would not be out of place if they had to play NHL minutes between the pipes. Of those 3, Matt Murray was a bit of an unknown as he attempted to claw his way back into an NHL career from double hip surgery which had caused him to miss the entire previous season.
The other 2 keepers, Joseph Woll and Anthony Stolarz had workload questions hanging over their heads as both had not yet carried a full NHL season's slate of starts at that point in their careers.
Behind these 3 on the depth chart were Dennis Hildeby, Artur Akhtyamov and Vyacheslav Peksa. All 3 were on NHL contracts but their combined NHL experience when the season began was Hildeby's very brief bench riding stint as the Leafs' backup where he played zero NHL minutes.
By season's end Hildeby appeared in 6 NHL games with mixed results, while Akhtyamov had a few very encouraging performances in the AHL with a number of not so encouraging games as well. Overall however, Akhtyamov looked mostly promising as a netminding prospect.
Peksa on the other hand struggled while backstopping a lousy ECHL team in Cincinnati. Nothing he did last season would suggest that there is a path to the NHL for him but stranger things have happened.
Now with Matt Murray out of this mix and with no NHL experienced replacement for him beyond Hildeby's 6 big league games...is this enough goaltending depth?
If one of Stolarz or Woll miss time due to injury and recent history suggests that this is a very real possibility, Hildeby is up next. Akhtyamov may emerge as the 3rd stringer but he will have to maintain a consistency he has not yet shown in North America. So this begs another question:
Should the Leafs add another NHL experienced veteran netminder who can fill in for a few dozen games if called upon?