Maple Leafs Can't Properly Assess Goaltending Until Defense Improves
Goaltender Ilya Samsonov had his best performance of the season in a 21-save loss to the Florida Panthers on Thursday.
SUNRISE, Fla. — Ilya Samsonov started this season with a perfect 2-0-0 record but the Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender knew he had to be better than his .839 save percentage in those games.
On Thursday night, the Russian netminder put forth his best performance of the season, but his 21-save effort wasn't enough in a 3-1 loss to the Florida Panthers on Thursday.
"The result is not the same today but I feel like my game is a little bit better," Moving better. A couple of good shots against us."
The Leafs went back to Samsonov following Joseph Woll's season debut on Monday in a 4-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. The goaltending hasn't been great through four games so far, but the defense has been worse.
"We can’t truly assess the goalies until we start playing better defensively," Keefe said after the game on Thursday. "He (Samsonov) did a good job there, he made some saves on the penalty kill for us that were real good.
"Two goals come from distance, you’d like to see him find a way to get one of those for us. Especially when the guy on the other end is not giving you much. But I thought it was a good game and progress for Sammy in terms of finding his groove."
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a37vEjGcQw[/embed]
"Samsonov had to be sharp early in the game, making a big stop on Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk.
Despite that, Samsonov said he couldn't see either goal that got by him on Friday.
"Maybe I need to buy glasses," Samsonov said in his typical dry humor.
The Maple Leafs fell to 2-2-0 after starting their regular season with a pair of victories. They tinkered with new defensive pairs aligning Timothy Liljegren with Jake McCabe and John Klingberg with Mark Giordano. The Leafs may have had their best defensive effort all season, which is not saying a whole lot as Florida's transition game still left a lot of quality scoring chances for Toronto's goaltender to handle.
The Leafs currently have an expected goals-for rating of 54.8 percent, which is 10th in the NHL through Thursday's games, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
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