Maple Leafs recall goaltender from AHL

After clearing waivers early last week, Ilya Samsonov’s brief stint on the AHL roster is over. The Maple Leafs recalled last season’s starting netminder this morning, returning youngster Dennis Hildeby to AHL Toronto in a corresponding transaction.

Samsonov, 26, has had a horrid go of things this season that culminated in a minor league assignment to work with the team’s development staff. He did not suit up in any game action for the AHL’s Marlies during his 10-day stint. To go along with a rather peculiar 5-2-6 record, Samsonov had a .862 SV% in 15 NHL games — the second-worst in the league among qualified netminders only to the Hurricanes’ Antti Raanta.

Without any stats from his AHL run, it’s hard to gauge from an outside viewpoint if Samsonov is mentally ready to rebound from his struggles. There’s no doubt he’s a skilled, capable netminder. After all, he started 40 out of 82 games for Toronto last season and stopped 18 goals above expected, which was 10th in the league, per MoneyPuck. 

It’s also unclear whether or not the Leafs plan to play Samsonov anytime soon, as they’ve shown a willingness to ride the hot hand and start Martin Jones in back-to-back contests already once this month. The recall could be just to get Samsonov back working with the Leafs NHL staff as he gets closer to being deemed ready to play.

This has to be a tad disappointing for Hildeby, who didn’t see any action during his first NHL recall. After backing up Jones in four games, the monstrous 22-year-old Swede heads back to the Marlies, where he has a 2.20 GAA, .919 SV%, two shutouts and a 7-5-3 record in 15 games this year.