How can you not be romantic about hockey?
Through the first half of the 2023-24 regular season, Ilya Samsonov has dealt with tough performances, losing the starting job, being placed on waivers and a brief stint in the AHL. But on Wednesday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs gave Samsonov the net, desperate for a big effort against one of the best teams in hockey in the Winnipeg Jets.
What happened was nothing short of outstanding, as Samsonov made 32 saves and dragged the Maple Leafs into overtime, where Auston Matthews would score his league-leading 39th goal of the season to seal a 1-0 win.
After the game, Sportsnet’s Shawn McKenzie interviewed the Maple Leafs’ goaltender, mentioning that multiple times throughout the night, the Toronto crowd was chanting “Sammy.” He asked the 26-year-old how that made him feel.
“It’s unbelievable, you know, like I almost cried,” Samsonov said. “This is really important for me, a really big moment for me. It’s huge.”
Wednesday vs. the Jets was just Samsonov’s third game of 2024 since being recalled from the AHL’s Toronto Marlies on Jan. 10. After a lukewarm performance against the Detroit Red Wings on Jan. 14, stopping 20 of 23 shots in a 4-2 loss, followed by a steady night stopping 16 of 17 shots in a 3-1 win last Sunday against the Seattle Kraken, some weren’t sure if either he or Martin Jones would get the start in the first of a home-and-home with the Jets.
But head coach Sheldon Keefe said there was little doubt it would be Samsonov in goal on Wednesday.
“He’s very much looked like the Sammy we came to know last season,” Keefe said after practice on Tuesday.
After the Maple Leafs were outshot 16-4 in the first period on Wednesday, the team came out flat again in the second. A turnover on a power play led to a 2-on-0 the other way for Jets’ forwards Adam Lowry and Morgan Barron.
The three-save sequence caused fans to give Samsonov a standing ovation, and his teammates stood up on the bench banging their sticks, as if the goaltender just squared up in a fight at center ice.
After recording his second shutout of the season, Samsonov now has a 7-3-6 record with a .875 SV% and 3.45 GAA. There’s no way of knowing if this is the start of something special or just one memorable game in an arduous season, but on Wednesday night, there was no question who the first star was.
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