Turns out James Reimer didn’t need to give those sad farewell interviews after all. Despite the expectation that Reimer was going to be traded or that his case would make it all the way to arbitration, he was re-signed to a two-year, $4.6 million contract on July 25.

Last year wasn’t Reimer’s best, although putting up a .911 overall SV% in a “down year” is something many goalies would probably kill for. (All SV% numbers listed here are overall SV%.) His numbers from previous years are strong enough that it’s reasonable to expect he’ll bounce back. Save percentage can fluctuate wildly—Sergei Bobrovsky had a SV% of .899 during the 2011-12 season. The very next year, his SV% skyrocketed to .932 and he won the Vezina.

Since goalies are so unpredictable, it’s hard to predict how Reimer might do next season, even after looking at his numbers. What, exactly, can we expect from Reimer in 2014-15? Here are three possibilities:

Reimer plays the way he did this past season (SV% of ~.911), gets the same number of starts

League average goaltending for the past few years has been in the .911-.914 range. While league average goaltending isn’t always exciting, it is steady and reliable. If the Leafs truly believe that Jonathan Bernier is the starter of the future, then having a league-average goaltender behind him to reduce his workload is a good move. From a logical standpoint, this would be a pretty decent outcome for the Leafs.

From an emotional standpoint, though, it would be harder to swallow. Reimer is one of the easiest Leafs to root for, and after his mesmerizing work during the lockout-shortened season, it was hard to see him downgrade to “pretty good” this past season. And it was clear that he felt his performance was lacking. Even if Carlyle stops blaming him for every loss, another year with a .911 and less than 40 starts probably means the return of Sad Reimer, and no one wants that.

Reimer reverts to previous form (.920 or higher), still is treated like a backup

Based on everything that happened last season, it’s pretty apparent that Carlyle has no qualms with benching Reimer even if he’s playing well. If Bernier and Reimer have similar numbers in 2014-15, even if Reimer’s are back in the .920s, it seems likely that Bernier will be treated like the starter and Reimer like the backup.

This would be a pretty stupid idea—why make one guy work twice as hard if both are of equal talent?—and it would add a lot of fuel to the “Carlyle hates Reimer” rumors. There are two silver linings if this scenario actually happens, though. First, any increase in Reimer’s SV% likely means an increase in his trade value, regardless of how often he plays. Second, if Carlyle blatantly misuses his goalies, it might contribute to getting him fired…if anything Carlyle does can actually get him fired, that is.

Reimer plays at league average or better, gets a chance at getting his old job back

This is where things start to get interesting. There are some hints that Reimer could get a real chance this year to regain the starters’ job, or at least split the starts with Bernier. He was supposedly told that he has a “definite chance” of becoming the starter, although the Leafs may have said that to placate him. The cap hit on his new contract is only $400K less than Bernier’s, but most teams with a clearly defined starter and backup are paying their backup significantly less. (This is true even of teams with younger, less established starters—look at the gap between Braden Holtby’s contract and Justin Peters’.) If the Leafs really thought of Reimer as “just a backup,” his raise would likely have been smaller.

And just as past goalie history suggests that Reimer’s SV% will go up next season, it also suggests that Bernier’s SV% will go down. Bernier also had sports hernia surgery this offseason, and it remains to be seen whether he’s fully recovered. If he’s still hurting, the Leafs will have to play Reimer much more than they did last season.

Reimer’s played well enough in the past, and Bernier is new enough as a starter, that the two of them should still be battling it out and playing as a true tandem. There’s no reason for the Leafs to settle on Bernier after such a small sample size, and to neglect to use one of their greatest assets: two good goalies that cost less than $5.5 million a year. Hopefully, the Leafs have brought Reimer back to test his true talent and give him a chance at the job he’s always wanted.