After a junior profession the place he typically cut up the online, the hulking goaltender spent a lot of the subsequent decade using American Hockey League buses and NHL benches.
Stolarz noticed a chance when he signed with the Maple Leafs in free company final summer season.
He is made essentially the most of that likelihood — and is now starring on centre stage.
The 31-year-old has stopped 57 of the 61 pictures he is confronted in a pair of Toronto victories to open the membership’s first-round playoff sequence with the Ottawa Senators.
Stolarz needed to be sharp when rating was shut in a 6-2 triumph in Sport 1. He then held the fort after his crew blew an early 2-0 lead earlier than securing a 3-2 time beyond regulation determination in Sport 2.
“That is what you reside for,” the sweat-soaked Edison, N.J., product stated Tuesday evening within the Leafs’ locker room. “That is playoff hockey.”
Stolarz, who completed with a 21-8-3 document, .926 save proportion, 2.14 goals-against common and 5 shutouts within the common season, had just below 35 minutes of NHL playoff expertise coming into this spring after occupying the No. 2 position behind Sergei Bobrovsky within the Florida Panthers’ run to their first Stanley Cup title final June.
That journey ended with sipping champagne from hockey’s holy grail. He additionally jotted down loads of notes alongside the way in which.
“How (Bobrovsky) performed his day-to-day routine and what it took to arrange and sit subsequent to him within the locker room and simply communicate to him, I feel that went fairly far for me,” stated Stolarz, who had a .925 save proportion with Florida. “I am simply attempting to take all that have from final yr and roll it over.”
Earlier than touchdown with the Panthers, the six-foot-six, 243-pound netminder had bounced round after being chosen within the second spherical of the 2012 draft by the Philadelphia Flyers.
Stolarz, who missed time in 2024-25 with a knee damage, shared Toronto’s crease with Joseph Woll for a lot of the common season earlier than separating himself down the stretch with eight straight victories — together with shutouts in three of his last 4 begins — to go together with a .950 save proportion and a 1.40 GAA.
Leafs winger Max Domi, who scored the OT clincher in Sport 2, was teammates with Stolarz in junior when the Ontario Hockey League’s London Knights performed in back-to-back Memorial Cups in 2013 and 2014.
“He is a gamer,” Domi stated. “He all the time has been a gamer. Unbelievable teammate.”
Toronto centre John Tavares stated there are classes in Stolarz’s path.
“By no means stop,” he stated. “Preserve competing, preserve believing in your self. His skills that go together with that perception and competitiveness, it is an important combo.”
Stolarz additionally is not shy about standing his floor. The testy best-of-seven Battle of Ontario, which continues Thursday within the nation’s capital, has already seen loads of run-ins, together with Stolarz dropping Ottawa antagonist Ridly Greig in his crease Tuesday.
“I’ve seen that in junior, too,” stated Toronto winger Mitch Marner, one other Knights alum. “He is an enormous man. He sticks up for himself.”
Leafs head coach Craig Berube was in Philadelphia when Stolarz was simply getting his ft moist on the professional stage.
“He got here on this yr eager to be a starter,” stated the 2019 Cup-winning bench boss with the St. Louis Blues. “He is been glorious all yr … getting back from the damage, it took him a bit to ascertain himself once more.
“However he is doing the job for us now.”
Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly, who has two targets within the sequence, stated the group can play even higher in entrance of their netminder as a part of a Berube-led system that calls for a north-south strategy and a dedication to creating life troublesome on the opposition at each flip.
“He is been excellent,” the blueliner stated of Stolarz. “He is answered the bell. There is not any query that he is been a stud.”
Stolarz has waited a very long time be on this place. He is having fun with the trip — and is not about to let the chance slip.
“All about persistence,” he stated. “Ensuring that I am prepared.”
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