The Leafs used to get ‘goalied’ in the playoffs. Anthony Stolarz has flipped the script
The Ottawa Senators did everything right in the second period. So much that it should’ve been enough to win them Game 2. They outhustled the Toronto Maple Leafs, outhit them, hemmed them into their zone, outshot them 13-3. But they could only cut a 2-0 Toronto lead to 2-1 on a fortunate bounce when Brady Tkachuk’s between-the-legs pass caromed off Brandon Carlo and in.
The Sens deserved a lot more, but Anthony Stolarz snatched the period from them.
The 6-foot-6 goaltender commanded the crease all night in Toronto’s 3-2 overtime win Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena, but he stood particularly tall in that second period. It wasn’t just the sound positioning, the vastly improved rebound control compared to Game 1 and the straight-up saves. Stolarz asserted himself, manhandling Senators agitator Ridly Greig with a flurry of slashes at one point in the second. It earned Stolarz a penalty to offset Greig’s, but the message was sent.
“I was just caught up in the heat of battle, just one of those things,” Stolarz said. “I didn’t even know who it was.”
Stolarz and the Leafs bent during a tense third period, surrendering the tying goal on a deft point-shot deflection by Adam Gaudette. But with 1:24 remaining and Dylan Cozens alone in the slot, Scotiabank Arena could’ve been silenced…yet there was Stolarz, making his one flashy save of the night, some point-blank glove work to help the game reach overtime. It bought the Leafs just enough time to wake up. They held on to reach overtime and showed the same rubbery-legged fright that afflicted them in Game 7 against the Boston Bruins last year, but they fought through it, and Max Domi’s patience in waiting for a Simon Benoit screen paid off when Domi sniped his first career playoff overtime winner at the 3:09 mark.
The Leafs played a ferocious, confident first period, scoring a pair of lucky goals of their own, a laser of a William Nylander pass off Morgan Rielly’s skate and a John Tavares power-play shot off defenseman Nick Jensen’s leg. But that second was easily their weakest frame of the playoffs so far. Ottawa outchanced them 10-1 and held an 81.8 percent expected goal share at 5-on-5. But their goaltender kept them alive just enough to help them prevail.
“You have to weather the storm and try not to give them too much,” Stolarz said “And it’s on me to make a big save here and there. The second period, they were kind of just throwing junk at the net, and I was just trying my best to control it. And I thought we did a great job of boxing out their forwards, and those guys have allowed me to see the initial shot.”
Third period leather flash aside, it wasn’t the kind of win in which you could cut a thrilling highlight reel of gasp-inducing Stolarz stops. That’s partially because the Sens weren’t able to back up their possession time with consistently dangerous looks. It’s also because, whereas counterpart Joseph Woll tends to flash more of the desperate athleticism that brings fans out of their seats, Stolarz is more about arriving on time, maintaining a calm posture and demeanor.
Well, sort of calm. The fiery competitiveness is a big part of his game. It’s eerily reminiscent of the last Leaf goalie to be a series tilter: Hall of Famer Ed Belfour, known for mixing positional soundness with a f–k-around-and-find-out mean streak. He was mostly brilliant across two playoff runs with the Leafs in 2002-03 and 2003-04, helping them defeat the Senators 21 years ago. In eight playoff runs of the Auston Matthews / Mitch Marner era from 2017-2024, the Leafs have typically been chasing the game, never holding a 2-0 series lead until Tuesday’s final horn sounded. They were constantly being goalied, facing a murderer’s row of Vezina Trophy winners, including Tuukka Rask (twice), Braden Holtby, Andrei Vasilevskiy (twice), Carey Price and Sergei Bobrovsky, not to mention Joonas Korpisalo and Jeremy Swayman both playing arguably the best playoff series of their careers.
Here’s a look at the Leaf starting goaltender’s save percentage versus their opponent’s in every series since 2016-17:
| Season | Leaf starter SV% | Opponent starter SV% |
| 2016-17 | .915 (F. Andersen) | .925 (B. Holtby) |
| 2017-18 | .896 (F. Andersen) | .899 (T. Rask) |
| 2018-19 | .922 (F. Andersen) | .928 (T. Rask) |
| 2019-20 | .936 (F. Andersen) | .956 (J. Korpisalo) |
| 2020-21 | .934 (J. Campbell) | .932 (C. Price) |
| 2021-22 | .897 (J. Campbell) | .897 (A. Vasilevskiy) |
| 2022-23 | .900 (I. Samsonov) | .875 (A. Vasilevskiy) |
| 2022-23 | .921/.892 (Woll/Samsonov) | .943 (S. Bobrovsky) |
| 2023-24 | .896 (Samsonov) | .950 (J. Swayman) |
| 2024-25 | .934 (Stolarz) | .800 (Ullmark) |
The Leafs’ opponent has won the goalie battle in six of nine series across eight postseasons, with six rival goalies posting a SV% of .925 or higher. But now? It’s the Leafs’ opponent getting goalied by Stolarz.
“He’s been outstanding,” Rielly said. “He’s here to compete and he loves it. It’s our job to help him out a little bit more than we have. That being said, he’s answered the bell…I think as a group, we have some improvements to make, but there’s no question he’s been a stud for us. He’s holding down the fort.”
“Like I’ve been saying all season, he’s been unbelievable,” Marner said. “He’s made some massive saves when we needed him. “His vocals out there are great as well. He lets you know where people are and where people are trying to go. So yeah, it’s nice to have a goalie like that.”
The Leafs, even during some of their worst chokes over the past decade, have rarely gone quietly. They’ve rallied from 3-1 series deficits, forced multiple Game 7s, won road games in overtime, you name it. But they never had an opponent struggling to solve their goalie. Stolarz was the great equalizer in Game 2, and he sent what easily could’ve been a 1-1 series back to Ottawa with a 2-0 margin. Suddenly, the man with no career playoff starts has two solid ones under his belt. And he credits the success to learning behind a great mentor in Sergei Bobrovsky with the Florida Panthers during their Stanley Cup crusade last year – and to never losing perspective on how magical the experience of playoff hockey is.
“Last year, being able to be behind ‘Bob’ and just see how he conducted his day-to-day routine and just what it took to prepare, and sit next to him in the locker room and just speak to him, that went pretty far for me,” Stolarz said. “So, I’m just trying to take all that experience from last year and roll it over to this year.
“Obviously you want your opportunity, but at the end of the day, I’m playing in the NHL. So I guess I like to have fun out there. I like to enjoy the moment with everyone on the team.”
Just one more reason why, through two games, the vibe of this Leafs clubs feels a bit different. Game 3 will tell us a lot about both teams, however. Canadian Tire Centre will host its first playoff game in eight years, and the Sens, already a feisty club, will come out flying. But whereas the Leafs could never safely count on the likes of James Reimer, Frederik Andersen, Jack Campbell or Ilya Samsonov in a hostile environment, Stolarz inspires a throwback confidence. And if he falters, Toronto has a darn good fallback in Woll.
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POST SPONSORED BY bet365
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