{"id":87144,"date":"2020-10-13T20:54:39","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T00:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=87144"},"modified":"2020-10-13T20:54:34","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T00:54:34","slug":"aaron-dell-signs-toronto-maple-leafs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2020\/10\/13\/aaron-dell-signs-toronto-maple-leafs\/","title":{"rendered":"Aaron Dell Signs with Toronto Maple Leafs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/leafs\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> have signed goaltender <\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/dellaa01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Dell<\/a><\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">. Dell&#8217;s deal is for one-year worth $800,000. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udd8b\ufe0f We&#8217;ve signed Aaron Dell to a one-year contract. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LeafsForever?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#LeafsForever<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Details: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SgtzT0Ayw0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/SgtzT0Ayw0<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Ji7bFRYN6m\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Ji7bFRYN6m<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>\u2014 Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MapleLeafs\/status\/1316177372572528640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 14, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Maple Leafs Sign Goaltender Aaron Dell<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Over Dell&#8217;s four-year career, he has played as the backup goaltender for the <\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/sharks\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">San Jose Sharks.<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0Dell once formed an unstoppable tandem with\u00a0<\/span><strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/j\/jonesma02.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Martin Jones<\/a><\/span><\/strong><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, although both goalies have fallen off since. Dell&#8217;s posted a .908 save percentage in his four years with the Sharks, which is respectable for a backup goalie. Despite his stellar play in the 2016\u201317 season, Dell hasn&#8217;t been a good goalie the past two seasons. He had a dreadful 2018\u201319, where he had a .886 save percentage and a -14.75 GSAA (goals saved above average). This shows that even though the Sharks were playing good defence in front of him, he wasn&#8217;t making the easy saves he should&#8217;ve. Dell had a better 2019\u201320 season, where his save percentage rose to .907 on a bad Sharks team. Dell even took the starting role for a little bit before Jones returned to his starting form.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Dell is currently 32 years old, so he still has some good seasons left in him. His first NHL season came when he was 27 years old, so he hasn&#8217;t played too many NHL games yet. This will let Dell maintain his NHL-level performance later than most backups. Dell will also rebound from his poor performance the past two seasons, as he was playing behind an old, abysmal Sharks defence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">What Dell Brings to the Maple Leafs<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Dell brings a steady backup presence to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/a\/anderfr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Frederik Andersen<\/strong><\/a>. The Maple Leafs can put Dell in whenever they need to and can rely on the fact that he&#8217;ll put up respectable numbers. They can give Dell a start in back-to-backs, which would take some of the load off of starting goalie Andersen. While Dell is small for the NHL at just 6&#8242;-0&#8243;, he takes up the bottom portion of the net with his solid positioning and form. Dell is a smart signing for the Maple Leafs as he will bring the backup goalie presence that they needed. It will be interesting how the Maple Leafs handle Dell and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/campbja01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jack Campbell<\/strong><\/a> going forward. And who will be the backup for Andersen?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"n1_CNdqmRoVgXTyOdgDVDQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.ca\/detail\/1212596571\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'n1_CNdqmRoVgXTyOdgDVDQ',sig:'0UuOiwfUP4ASsAoJIoexgXAzYctSCyzFoU1os6lXXeI=',w:'594px',h:'428px',items:'1212596571',caption: true ,tld:'ca',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Maple Leafs have signed goaltender Aaron Dell. Dell&#8217;s deal is for one-year worth $800,000. \ud83d\udd8b\ufe0f We&#8217;ve signed Aaron Dell to a one-year contract. #LeafsForever Details: https:\/\/t.co\/SgtzT0Ayw0 pic.twitter.com\/Ji7bFRYN6m \u2014 Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) October 14, 2020 Maple Leafs Sign Goaltender Aaron Dell Over Dell&#8217;s four-year career, he has played as the backup goaltender for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3556,"featured_media":87562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[34,4547,4548,18],"tags":[522,5395,37,38,117,72],"class_list":["post-87144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-hockey","category-nhl","category-leafs","tag-aaron-dell","tag-goalies","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"modified_by":"Jim Biringer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87144","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\/3556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}