Vesa Toskala

This flashy little Finn could very well be Toronto’s franchise player. He put in a masterful performance down the stretch last year and should once again deliver some amazing efforts this year. His save percentage and goals-against average should be OK given the defense-first philosophy of new coach Ron Wilson. But Toskala is going to have to deliver near-perfect games night in and night out in order to post lots of wins (his team just isn’t going to score enough to help him). He could still get 30 but it’ll be slow going.

This flashy little Finn could very well be Toronto’s franchise player. He put in a masterful performance down the stretch last year and should once again deliver some amazing efforts this year. His save percentage and goals-against average should be OK given the defense-first philosophy of new coach Ron Wilson. But Toskala is going to have to deliver near-perfect games night in and night out in order to post lots of wins (his team just isn’t going to score enough to help him). He could still get 30 but it’ll be slow going.

Things fell into place perfectly for Toskala late last year, shocking everyone including the team (which had just made a financial commitment to Evgeni Nabokov). But before you pay for Toskala’s snappy 23-7-4 record, keep in mind his save percentage was a pedestrian .901, and Ron Wilson sounds like the kind of coach who likes to have two goalies pushing each other as the season goes along. There’s going to be a lot of ebb-and-flow to this goaltending situation, and keep in mind Nabokov’s better seasons were definitely more impressive than what we saw from Toskala in 2005-06. If you can get Toskala at a reasonable price, that’s one thing, but don’t aggressively target him by any means. The cheaper goalie on draft day is probably the person you want on your roster – let the value make the call.

He's a solid No. 2 goalie but he's no threat to push Nabokov. If your league has a value on a goaltender who plays 30 games or less, Toskala is worth a late selection.