The Leafs have been shelled this season, allowing the fourth most shots per game, yet are still firmly in a playoff position, thanks in large part to their goaltending.

What began as a major question mark heading into the season has turned into the backbone of the team.

James Reimer and Ben Scrivens have led the Leafs to a .916 team save percentage, good for eighth best in the league. In recent years with the likes of Vesa Toskala and Andrew Raycroft, breaking .900 was a minor miracle. Now, the Leafs have received better goaltending than teams like Montreal, Vancouver, Nashville, and Los Angeles, teams with unquestioned No. 1 goaltenders.

But strong goaltending in Toronto hasn't stopped rumours from popping up over the last few days linking high-profile veteran goalies to the Leafs. Roberto Luongo, currently sitting on the bench in Vancouver, is once again being talked about, apparently. But the new rumour de jour—one that makes even less sense—claims the Leafs are talking to Calgary about bringing Miikka Kiprusoff to Toronto.

The NHL trade deadline has become a full day media event in Canada. It’s crazy. Sportsnet is producing ads for their deadline show that have the analysts comparing the race to break stories among networks to the competition they faced as players on the ice. Doug MacLean yells about trades, something like, “instead of making bad trades today, I get to praise them!”

TSN is pretty awful on deadline day, too. James Duthie makes smart-ass remarks, while we watch Darren Dreger and Bob MacKenzie text on their blackberrys for 8 hours. Spectacular television. That being said, I do like watching for an hour near the actual trade deadline to get a nice recap of the day’s trades and to see if there is any sort of flurry near 3pm. I don’t need to watch each trade analyzed for an hour until the next trade occurs.

It hasn’t always been this way.