Leafs forced to make a change in goal due to injury.

The Toronto Maple Leafs brought in veteran goaltender Michal Neuvirth on a professional tryout offer during training camp in what appeared to be a very low risk move at the time. Neuvirth is clearly a very talented goaltender, however his inability to stay healthy in recent years has made him all but untouchable, which is why avoiding signing him to a new deal out of the gate was definitely a smart move. 

In spite of the careful steps the Maple Leafs and general manager Kyle Dubas took in bringing in Neuvirth for training camp, it is now starting to look like the Leafs may have been better off not adding Neuvirth at all, even on PTO. The veteran goalie was meant to compete with veteran backup goaltender Michael Hutchinson for the backup job behind Leafs starting goaltender Frederik Andersen, but instead Neuvirth has been sidelined for much of training camp as well as for the entirety of the NHL's preseason thus far. 

The bad news regarding the health of Neuvirth continued on Monday as reports began to leak out suggesting that the veteran goalie would continue to miss even more time due to the training camp injury he suffered. First it was Toronto Maple Leafs beat reporter Jonas Siegel who reported that, in spite of the fact that Neuvirth was expected to travel with the Maple Leafs to Montreal tonight where they will face off against the Montreal Canadiens in a preseason game, the 31 year old goaltender was nowhere to be seen during Toronto's morning skate on Monday morning.

Now to be fair there are any number of reasons that Neuvirth could have missed a morning skate that would be unrelated to his injury, however an update from Toronto Maple Leafs beat reporter Terry Koshan appeared to strongly indicate that Neuvirth is in fact still unable to participate in preseason action. According to Koshan it will be Michael Hutchinson who gets the start in Montreal tonight, but instead of Neuvirth being the backup to Hutchinson for the contest it will be 21 year old prospect Joseph Woll who gets the nod. Woll was Toronto's 3rd round draft pick (62nd overall) at the 2016 NHL Entry Draft and was not expected to be competing for the backup job at training camp.

It seems likely that this change in net has been made due to the injury to Neuvirth, and it seems like Hutchinson may win the backup job in Toronto without ever even having to fight for it.