Why Maple Leafs traded Joseph Woll to Flyers

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The Toronto Maple Leafs shaped up to have this in their near future, and it's now the present.

The Leafs traded away goalie Joseph Woll, announcing the move on Tuesday morning that sends him to the Philadelphia Flyers.

The deal also sends Simon Benoit to the Flyers.

Returning to the Maple Leafs are Samuel Ersson, Emil Andrae and a third-round pick.

It wasn't a given that Woll would be the Leafs goalie that got traded, with Anthony Stolarz also a possibility, but it appears Toronto has chosen to hang onto Stolarz for now.

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Why did the Maple Leafs trade Joseph Woll to the Flyers?

The Maple Leafs simply had too many goalies.

The aforementioned Stolarz is the other goalie with a lot of NHL experience for Toronto.

They also have the young and promising combination of Dennis Hildeby and Artur Akhtyamov.

That's as many as four goalies who may be ready for NHL action in 2026-27, if not soon after. It didn't make sense for Toronto to have so many assets tied up in goal.

They do get Ersson back, another goalie, but he's likely regarded as less valuable than Woll after a season in which he had just an 87.0 save percentage.

Andrae is the guy most exciting for Toronto, a 24-year old defenseman who is a left-shot and was a former second-round pick out of Sweden.

The Maple Leafs needed to do some upgrading at the blue line, and by giving up Woll, they appear to be on their way to doing that.