In Anthony Stolarz, the Maple Leafs may finally have their advantage in goal

New York Times

21-04-2025

You watched Anthony Stolarz calmly swat away almost every quality Ottawa Senators chance during Sunday's 6-2 win in Game 1, as the goalie in the other crease floundered badly, and it wasn't hard to start reflecting on the recent past.
It certainly feels like it's been a while since the Maple Leafs have had a definitive edge in the crease in a full postseason, save perhaps for that one anomalous series for Andrei Vasilevskiy — the only one Toronto has won in two decades.
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And it also feels like it hasn't been since the last Battle of Ontario that Toronto started not only the best goalie in a series, but arguably one of the best goalies in the league.
Stolarz looked like that 'tender on this night, just as he has almost all season in piling up an impressive .926 save percentage and the second-best goals saved above expected mark in the NHL.
'He had to make some huge saves,' Leafs coach Craig Berube said, praising how timely Stolarz's stops were when the game was still in reach for Ottawa. 'He was just solid. Very solid.'
Truth be told, the Leafs' goalies have never really been their primary playoff problem.
Since 2016, the start of the Auston Matthews era, they have actually gotten some saves in the postseason, with an average .913 save percentage that is pretty well league average. Sure, sometimes there were issues — especially in a couple noteworthy deciding games — and the Ilya Samsonov experience, in particular, wasn't kind.
But the bigger issue has almost always been that they've been out-goalied.
A .913 save percentage in the playoffs is well and good if your $11 million stars are piling up four goals a night. But this era of the Leafs' core has often made whoever is in the other crease look like George Vezina's direct descendant.
Consider this roster of Leafs netminders over the past eight postseasons, with their corresponding stats.
(Yes, Erik Källgren played in the playoffs and made 10 saves for the Leafs. No, I didn't remember that either.)
It's a fairly meh list, other than that glimpse of glory that was Joseph Woll's brief heroics against the Bruins in the first round last year before he was hurt. But it's not a disastrous rundown.
You compare it to how goalies have played against the Leafs in the playoffs, however, and it's night and day. This here is the type of goaltending that wins you series (and, frankly, Stanley Cups).
Basically, everyone has been getting it against Toronto — for years.
Part of the problem is the Leafs ran into Vezina winners, again and again. In fact, between 2013 and 2019, Bobrovsky, Rask, Price, Holtby and Vasilevskiy won six of the seven Vezinas, which is quite a run of quality opposition to have to face in a first- or second-round series.
But as has been well documented, the Leafs also made all those quality goalies (except, for some reason, Vasilevskiy) look unbeatable. They even did it with Korpisalo, too.
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Toronto's stars didn't convert on the power play enough. Didn't get to the net front hard enough. Didn't break through with the series on the line nearly enough.
That meant the pressure was even more on who the Leafs had in goal. And that was never a former Vezina winner. That's just not how Toronto's teams have been built, salary structure-wise.
What's fascinating about the goalie matchup in this series is that Linus Ullmark is a former Vezina winner, and he has the $8.25 million cap hit to show for it when his new contract kicks in next season.
Stolarz, meanwhile, is making just $2.5 million, the 38th highest-paid goalie in the league. (Heck, he makes less than Ottawa's backup, Anton Forsberg, who they're paying $2.75 million to work the gate on the bench.)
Stolarz has, quite literally, been found money all season for this team. He posted a quality start in 73 percent of his games, tops in the NHL, and a figure approached only by Hart candidate Connor Hellebuyck.
If the 6-foot-6, 243-pound behemoth can be anything close to what he was during the regular season, he may be the difference the Leafs have been lacking all these other ugly years.
Making his performance all the more remarkable on Sunday was the fact that this was his first-ever playoff start at 31 years old. And you could tell it meant something more to him after the game, after years of injuries and being a journeyman backup, to be the guy in Game 1, for a contender, outplaying a high-calibre opponent.
It's what he's been battling for since he was selected 45th overall, 13 years ago, ahead of Andersen, Hellebuyck and Ullmark in the same draft year.
'I had goosebumps when you stepped on the ice and the crowd goes nuts,' Stolarz said. 'I think that propelled us a lot tonight.'
Stolarz has lived out a long run before. He was Bobrovsky's backup for all of the Panthers' impressive trek to winning it all last spring, and he — along with fellow ex-Florida teammates Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Steven Lorentz — have brought a real swagger into Toronto's dressing room this season.
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There's no fear among those three, no baggage from playoffs past, which is most important in the crease, given internal confidence has at times been lacking there in the past.
The biggest question for Stolarz: can he continue to play this well, every second night, during a long run — something he has never really been asked to do at the pro level?
The fact that that is the only uncertainty — and not his ability or his mindset — is an upgrade over the question marks the Leafs have had at the sport's most important position far too often in the past.
For now, all of the pressure has shifted to Ullmark and the Senators, who need to show they're not going to be the ones out-goalied this time around.
It's just one game. But given the season he's had, Stolarz feels like one of the biggest sure things in this series right now.
And when have we said that before in Toronto?
It's been a while.