Maple Leafs hope Joseph Woll can be exception to harsh reality — they can't seem to draft or develop goalies

While fans can breathe a little easier after their team welcomed 2024 with a and , a question mark that's been dragging on for some time remains unresolved: goaltending. , was just brought back from a rescue mission to try and save his game in the minors and in the meantime, a 33 year old , holding down the fort as long as he can.

Outstanding NHL goaltending is in short supply and Leafs general manager earlier this month. “I checked outside, the goaltender tree was empty," Treliving told reporters. "I couldn’t pick one off there. We’ll see with a little bit of sun, maybe they will grow a few more.” The only problem for hopeful contenders like the Leafs is that they can’t wait for goalies to grow.

The ideal goaltending situation is to have one that you've planted and cultivated over the years within your organization — like Thatcher Demko in Vancouver, Jake Oettinger in Dallas, Andrei Vasilevskiy in Tampa Bay and Jeremy Swayman in Boston, to name a few. The Leafs hope that the currently injured Woll, still without a timetable to return after suffering a high ankle sprain, can fit the bill.

But that remains a hope, not yet a proven fact. So the drought remains. It's been over 33 years since the Leafs last drafted and developed a front line goaltender who saw playoff success when they selected Felix Potvin in the second round in 1990. The Montreal native provided great goaltending through those playoff runs in 1993 and 1994 to help his team win four series in two years.

In the first round against Chicago in 1994, Potvin had three shutouts (all by 1 0 scores) in the Leafs’ six game series win. Potvin's Leafs tenure was ending as the Pat Quinn era began and while playoff success continued, there was no homegrown goaltender in sight. Curtis Joseph was signed as a free agent in 1998 and gave the Leafs four excellent years followed by another quality free agent signing in Ed Belfour, in 2002, who did the same for three more seasons.

The first NHL draft following the 2004 05 lockout saw the Leafs take their goaltender of the future when they selected Tuukka Rask 21st overall — their biggest draft investment in the position since Éric Fichaud was taken 16th in 1994. The Leafs planned to keep a close eye on Rask’s development that season in the Finnish junior league as a stepping stone to being the successor to Joseph and Belfour.

Then the unexpected happened. A junior goaltending sensation suddenly appeared in that 2005 06 season. Justin Pogge, drafted by the Leafs in the third round a year before Rask, had an off the charts goals against average of 1.72 and save percentage of .926 in 54 games for the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey League.

Justin Pogge celebrates with fans after the Toronto Marlies beat the Chicago Wolves in the AHL semis at the Ricoh Coliseum on May 21, 2008. Pogge saved his best performances for the biggest stage: the world junior tournament, where he played in six games for Canada's 2006 gold medal team posting a 1.00 goals against average, .952 save percentage and three shutouts.

The Leafs called an organizational audible and anointed Pogge the goaltender of the future. Since they needed one for the present, they traded future Vezina Trophy winner Rask to the Boston Bruins in 2006 before he ever played a game with Toronto. The return was Andrew Raycroft, who gave the Leafs one solid year before fizzling out.

Pogge, meanwhile, mysteriously and unfortunately couldn't stick in the NHL. The Pogge Rask Raycroft debacle is the headlining event in decades of failed goalie development. Since Potvin was selected 31st in 1990 and went on to play 365 games for the Leafs and win 25 playoff games, they haven't had a goaltender they drafted turn into a franchise player.

The 22 goalies drafted since Potvin have combined to play 320 games for the Leafs — James Reimer is responsible for 207 of those games, though he never played more than 37 in a season and didn't win a playoff series, and Woll owns 26 of them. What's gone wrong for the Leafs on that front? Is it drafting? They haven't used a first round pick on a goalie since Fichaud in 1994 and Rask in '05.

Is it development? Pogge (seven games with the Leafs), Mikael Tellqvist (41), Garret Sparks (37) and Antoine Bibeau (2) each had a shot but didn't work out. Maple Leafs goaltender Mikael Tellqvist watches the puck enter the goal during an NHL pre season game against the Montreal Canadiens on Sept.

22, 2005. Or is it the pressure? One former NHL goaltender turned broadcaster told me this: “If Pogge was the one traded to Boston he would have had the chance to develop at the American Hockey League level and not feel the same pressure as in Toronto. There is a good chance that Rask would have struggled with that pressure had he been the one to stay … Pogge embraced the pressure of being the Team Canada guy.

The pressure of being the Toronto Maple Leafs guy was harder to handle." We'll never know how different things would have been without the trade. But what Leafs fans know all too well is that Rask was the goaltending difference in Boston's three seven game playoff series victories over the Leafs in 2013, 2018 and 2019.

It was felt after that 2019 loss that it would be just a few years until the Leafs supplanted teams like Boston and Tampa Bay to become the de facto power of the Atlantic Division. But they haven't. Rask has retired and yet the Bruins still have a better goaltending situation with Swayman, Boston's fourth round selection in 2017, emerging as an elite puckstopper alongside free agent pickup Linus Ullmark.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay is still riding with Vasilevskiy, their first round pick in 2012, after he led them to two Stanley Cups. With cap constraints and a thin pipeline, the Leafs are stuck, and that isn’t an overly comforting place to be. With Samsonov playing like a liability and Jones' best days supposed to be behind him, the hope is that Woll takes root in Toronto as a true front line NHL goaltender.

The Leafs haven't drafted a goalie inside the first three rounds since Woll in 2016. Rask 18 years ago was the last one before that. While Treliving will likely have draft picks on the table at the trade deadline and certainly hopes Woll will be his long term solution, he needs to find a way to do what hasn't been done well enough in the past: prioritize drafting another goalie of the future..