Jonas Gustavsson

The Leafs have a problem that most teams would love to have.

James Reimer was off to a great start this season with a record of four wins and one overtime loss. However, he sustained a neck injury on October 22^nd while playing against the Montreal Canadiens, and he has not played since.

Now, this is a personal opinion. I personally, do not believe goaltender Jonas Gustavsson will monitor the backup role next year for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

He's too big of a risk to stunt the growth of one of the Leafs' young goaltenders with the Toronto Marlies.

For some reason or another, the great fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs are having a hard time placing their confidence in James Reimer and Jonas Gustavsson as the teams goaltending tandem for next season.

And I understand their hesitance, neither have a big body of work to go off of, Gustavsson, in particular, has struggled mightily this season and his injury problems are most certainly a red flag.

With the 2010-11 NHL season winding down and with the Toronto Maple Leafs looking like they will once again miss the playoffs, Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke has some tough decisions to make with regards to the roster he wants to send over the boards for the 2011-12 season.

While it is tough to speculate on which players Burke will bring into the fold via free agency this summer, there are more than a few players within the organization who appear to be on their way out.

Goaltending. For most NHL teams, goaltender is the single most important position, and, in many respects, has the biggest impact on a team's success, both pro and con.

A shutout victory should act as a cause for celebration for a Maple Leafs organization that is in need of wins, but if James Reimer continues his stellar play Brian Burke will be forced to make an important goal tending decision sooner, rather than later.

The management of the Toronto Maple Leafs temporarily fixed the issue regarding the crowded crease by announcing on Friday that goaltender Jonas Gustavsson had agreed to be loaned to the Toronto Marlies of the AHL for a 14 day conditioning stint.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Fifty games into the 2010-11 season, Brian Burke was supposed to know who his goaltender of the future was going to be. Given the lack of results or lack of experience from his three most talented goaltenders, Burke is still unsure which way to turn.

On the one hand, it would seem beneficial for Burke to turn his back on J.S. Giguere, trading the veteran goaltender to a playoff contender or allowing Giguere to escape Toronto this summer via free agency.

With the All-Star break here, there is no better time for general managers and coaches to reevaluate their teams during the season. Part of reevaluating an NHL team is looking at the team leaders in certain statistical categories, plus their act on and off the ice as a person.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have had many good moments, such as two 4-game winning streaks and multiple three of four stretches, as well as low moments, such as goalless streaks and losing 11 of 12 early in the season.

The recent announcement that the Toronto Maple Leafs will be carrying three goaltenders on their upcoming road trip has the Leafs Nation thinking two-fold. First, given the fact that three goaltenders is a crowd, will veteran goaltender J.S. Giguere be moved? And second, if J.S.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are off to a pretty good start in 2011 with a 5-2-1 record over all this year. Pretty impressive if you ask any fan of the team.

In the new year the teams numbers have also been impressive. Scoring is way up, in fact over the same eight game stretch, the Leafs scoring has been well above the league average of 2.78 goals per game at an average of 3.75 goals per game.