John Tavares Reveals True Thoughts On Leafs Waiving Goaltender Ilya Samsonov
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been underperforming expectations this year. This is largely due to injuries, but their goaltending has also been a key point of weakness. Ilya Samsonov has been particularly bad, resulting in the team waiving him over the new year and assigning him to the Toronto Marlies today.
Leafs Send Samsonov To Marlies To Regain Confidence
Given how poorly Samsonov has been preforming this year, the team did not really have any option other than to send him to the AHL. He cleared waivers this morning proving that he is not an NHL caliber goalie at the moment as any team could have picked him up for free.
Both Ilya Samsonov #LeafsForever and Eric Comrie #LetsGoBuffalo have cleared waivers.
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The beleaguered Leafs goalie will hopefully find his game quickly as the Leafs are unlikely to want to run with Martin Jones as their starter for an extended period of time. Until then though, the team will be running with their 3rd string goalie. So far, Jones has provided adequate goaltending, certainly much better than the performances Samsonov has given them this year.
Tavares Speaks Up About Maple Leafs Waiving Samsonov
Today, Leafs captain John Tavares shared his thoughts on the situation with Samsonov. He took responsibility for the move, citing the team's poor play in front of him for the reason why Samsonov has struggled so much this season. While that may be true to an extent, it is also true that the team has not played significantly differently in front of their other net minders and all of them have achieved better results. That being said, the Leafs captain would not want to call out his goaltender so it is understandable why he would blame himself and his teammates instead of putting all the blame on Samsonov, who already must feel bad for letting his teammates down.
Tavares: "We feel for Sammy in the way that it has gone. As a team and individually, you're disappointed that in a lot of those games, we just didn't play better ... We love him as a teammate. So definitely feel for him." #Leafs
The Leafs play their next game against the LA kings tomorrow at 10:30 EST. Martin Jones will likely be between the pipes to face his former team.
| POLL | ||
1 JANVIER | 290 ANSWERS John Tavares Reveals True Thoughts On Leafs Waiving Goaltender Ilya Samsonov Did the Leafs make the right move by waiving Samsonov? | ||
| Yes | 256 | 88.3 % |
| No | 34 | 11.7 % |
| LIST OF POLLS | ||
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