Quoting: aadoyle
Brad said and I quote
"I have faith in Joe but there's questions on his health. He's gotten injured alot we need to dig in and look at that.
and "we certainly have to try to put ourselves in a position where we don’t have the second-best goaltender in each of these series"
He never said Woll's our guy
Brad cant say is oh you know I have 0 faith in Woll hurting their relation with him or letting the media run wild. He is gonna go look whose out there look at the trade market and go hey if I can get Saros were set for a long time in net.
Cause his dig's gonna find what others have been finding early on, Woll cant stay healthy. This has been an issue since his NCAA days.
As the last thing we want going to 2024-2025 is use Woll/Stolarz and game 10 into season Woll's hurt and we got to go with Stolarz for 25 games in a row lul. This is the same issue Pitt had with Murray but they had Fleury/Jarry at the time who could play 40-50 games and make up for it
Smart thing for Brad to do is go get the guy we know can play 50+ games whose a top 5 goalie in the league and who you can have more faith in to stay healthy and do well in the playoffs
Cause in the end whats wrong with a Saros/Woll goalie duo?
Woll can play 25-30 games and be nice insurance should something happen
You are right, he never said that Woll was their guy... But he did say:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhA0t7WcLpg
He said what you stated but also stated that he might find it bad luck, etc. He also said: "I believe Joe as a goaltender, We have to support Joe" (22:30)
"... But I think it's a function of both sides" (22:35)
That tells me 2 things:
1. Woll's injuries this season were partly caused from the defence, to which he will improve
2. There's no goal support, causing him to stress out and get hurt
And I'd run the goaltending thing like this:
Woll - 35 games
Stolarz/DeSmith - 25 games
3rd string Jonesish backup - 15 games
Hildeby - 7 games
And use the potential $ from Saros to Stolarz to upgrade the defence to ensure that BOS scenario doesn't happen (where the defence quit on Woll)