{"id":239682,"date":"2025-10-25T17:55:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/239682\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T17:55:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:55:10","slug":"joseph-woll-returning-to-maple-leafs-from-personal-leave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/239682\/","title":{"rendered":"Joseph Woll Returning To Maple Leafs From Personal Leave"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Maple Leafs <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LeafsPR\/status\/1981798046330761716\" rel=\"nofollow\">announced<\/a> Friday that goaltender\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/w\/wolljo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-10-24_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Joseph Woll<\/a>\u00a0will begin the return-to-play process after missing more than a month while on personal leave. He was <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prohockeyrumors.com\/2025\/10\/atlantic-notes-sabourin-woll-shanahan.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">retroactively placed on long-term injured reserve yesterday<\/a> and will remain there until the club\u2019s doctors clear him to return to game action.<\/p>\n<p>Woll <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prohockeyrumors.com\/2025\/09\/joseph-woll-taking-indefinite-leave-of-absence.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">took an indefinite leave of absence<\/a> to deal with a family matter less than a week into training camp. He never entered the NHL\/NHLPA Player Assistance Program during his absence, so his return can be managed entirely at the team\u2019s discretion. The team clarified at the time that Woll\u2019s absence was not substance-abuse related but did not issue any further comment.<\/p>\n<p>Having Woll\u2019s return on the horizon is a welcome sight. The Maple Leafs haven\u2019t gotten great performances out of starter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/stolaan01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-10-24_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Anthony Stolarz<\/a>\u00a0or waiver claim\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/primeca01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-10-24_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cayden Primeau<\/a>\u00a0in his absence. Stolarz has seemingly struggled with a higher-than-normal workload, starting six of seven with a 2-3-1 record, .894 SV%, and 3.01 GAA. Those below-average numbers translate to a similarly unimpressive -1.6 goals saved above expected figure, per <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/moneypuck.com\/goalies.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MoneyPuck<\/a>. That\u2019s still not as subpar as the -1.7 GSAx that Primeau put up in his lone appearance, a 7-4 win over the Predators on Oct. 14 that saw him allow four goals on 30 shots.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the 27-year-old Woll has yet to have a below-average showing in any of his four NHL seasons. He was especially excellent last year, starting a career-high 41 games with a 27-14-1 record, .909 SV%, 2.73 GAA, and 16.8 GSAx. He was 11th in the league in that latter stat, proving his three-year, $11MM extension he signed in 2024 to be one of the better-value deals among goaltenders.<\/p>\n<p>Getting that type of play out of Woll in his return would help buoy a Maple Leafs club that\u2019s struggled on both sides of the puck to begin 2025-26. The team ranks in the bottom half of the league in both shots for and shots against per game, although above-average finishing still has them scoring 3.43 goals per game for 10th in the NHL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Maple Leafs announced Friday that goaltender\u00a0Joseph Woll\u00a0will begin the return-to-play process after missing more than a month&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,86199,4247,82,746],"class_list":{"0":"post-239682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-joseph-woll","11":"tag-newsstand","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}