Ilya Samsonov's body of work over the last week has been very solid

For Ilya Samsonov, this year has been a bit of a rollercoaster. First, he comes up short to the Presidents Trophy winning Florida Panthers in the first round of the playoffs. Next, he is left without a qualifying offer and becomes a UFA. Then, he signs a 1-year "prove it" deal with the Leafs and now he finds himself having started 4 straight games, winning 3 of them against some pretty elite competition and starting to run away as the Leafs' new #1 goaltender.

Now, I don't fully expect Matt Murray to be out of the running here and he's really only a couple of strong outings away from the Leafs going back to an alternating tandem, but for the time being, Samsonov has been playing some exceptional hockey and the proof is in some of the goaltenders that he has out-dueled over the past week.

After last night's OT win over the Rangers, Samsonov now holds wins over Igor Shesterkin (last year's Vezina Trophy winner), Ilya Sorokin (one of the favourites to win the Vezina this season) and Connor Hellebuyck (Vezina winner in 2019-20). His one loss in his past 5 appearances came at the hands of the lowly Montreal Canadiens on January 21st in Montreal - a 3-2 OT loss, during which Samsonov had posted a .933 SV% before Rem Pitlick placed a perfect shot just over his shoulder and under the bar in OT. This one is likely a classic case of underestimating the shooter, but the Leafs didn't play particularly well that game and many believe that Samsonov deserved a much better fate with how well he played in Montreal.

In Samsonov's wins over Shesterkin, Sorokin and Hellebuyck, he managed to post .931, .939 and .974 save percentages. He has allowed just 8 goals against in his last 5 outings, which equates to a combined 1.60 GAA over that span. He's playing some of the best hockey of his life right now and Leafs Nation is enjoying every minute of it.


At this point, it's more likely than not that we'll see Murray start the next game against his former team, the Ottawa Senators, to avoid the 2-time Cup winner getting cold. To be honest though, if the Leafs started Samsonov in each of the next 3 games leading up to the All-Star break, it wouldn't be all that surprising, given how well he's played, earning 9 of a possible 10 points in his last 5 games.