{"id":137491,"date":"2023-05-16T11:48:42","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T15:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=137491"},"modified":"2023-05-16T11:48:42","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T15:48:42","slug":"nhl-rumours-toronto-maple-leafs-goalie-seeks-return","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/05\/16\/nhl-rumours-toronto-maple-leafs-goalie-seeks-return\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Rumours: Toronto Maple Leafs Goalie Seeks Return"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve got another edition of NHL rumours ready to go for you. The Toronto Maple Leafs elimination has caused plenty of news and rumours. Toronto&#8217;s surprising Stanley Cup Playoff exit has raised many questions about the team&#8217;s lineup. Who will stay and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/05\/16\/nhl-rumour-toronto-maple-leafs-forward-market-could-be-heavy\/\" target=\"_self\">who will go<\/a>? However, there&#8217;s one player tha<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/05\/15\/nhl-rumour-toronto-maple-leafs-forward-wants-to-stay\/\" target=\"_self\">t wants to return<\/a> to the club besides <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/matthau01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-05-16_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Auston Matthews<\/a>. This edition of NHL rumours looks at a possible <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/samsoil01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-05-16_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ilya Samsonov<\/a> return to Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>All NHL rumours come from the original source and are subject to change.<\/p>\n<h2>NHL Rumours<\/h2>\n<h3>Update on Ilya Samsonov Return<\/h3>\n<p>Rumour: The Daily Faceoff&#8217;s Steven Ellis said the Russian netminder wants to return to the Maple Leafs. Samsonov mentioned this during the team&#8217;s exit media availability after the second-round loss to the<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2023\/05\/13\/toronto-maple-leafs-lose-series\/\" target=\"_self\"> Florida Panthers<\/a>. The 26-year-old is a restricted free agent with arbitration rights. He was making $1.8 million this season after a one-year contract with the team.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ilya Samsonov said he wants to remain with the Toronto Maple Leafs next season.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Steven Ellis (@SEllisHockey) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SEllisHockey\/status\/1658151293020516354?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 15, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Samsonov played well and helped the Maple Leafs get past the first-round hurdle. However, he was injured and missed the last two games of the series loss to the Panthers. He recorded a 2.33 goals-against-average and went 27-10-5 with four shutouts. Samsonov stepped in and gave Toronto some stability in goal that it had been lacking.<\/p>\n<h3>Will Ilya Samsonov Return?<\/h3>\n<p>Toronto may be facing all sorts of changes after not making the last four. There&#8217;s some talk about one or more of the core four not coming back next season. The Leafs are perpetually up against the salary cap, but have to find a way to give Samsonov a raise.<\/p>\n<p>One way to do that would be finding a taker for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=murrama02,murrama03&amp;search=Matt+Murray&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-05-16_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Murray<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/whats-next-for-matt-murray-with-the-toronto-maple-leafs\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">large contract<\/a>. However, Toronto may have to jump through hoops to make that happen. Samsonov should get a nice pay raise, but it may be painful to make that happen. The Leafs still have some good pieces, but the flat cap going up by only $1 million may force the team&#8217;s hand.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;ve got another edition of NHL rumours ready to go for you. The Toronto Maple Leafs elimination has caused plenty of news and rumours. Toronto&#8217;s surprising Stanley Cup Playoff exit has raised many questions about the team&#8217;s lineup. Who will stay and who will go? However, there&#8217;s one player that wants to return to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":137493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4321,4547,4548,18],"tags":[2413,478,6127],"class_list":["post-137491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rumours","category-hockey","category-nhl","category-leafs","tag-ilya-samsonov","tag-matt-murray","tag-toronto-maple-leafs-rumours"],"modified_by":"Tommy Bennett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}