Maple Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz still has a lot of close friends on the Florida Panthers.
He mentioned players like Matthews Tkachuk, Aaron Ekblad and Sam Reinhart.
“He gave me my cat,” Stolarz said of Reinhart, and a tabby named Sunny. “He fostered him for a bit. He was just walking home one night and he I guess the cat followed him and his wife home. They were looking for a family. And my wife and I just decided it would be best to take it in, and the rest is history.”
How the two teams stack up in the rematch of the 2023 Eastern Conference semifinal that Florida
If Stolarz thought he was close to the likes of Reinhart and Tkachuk before Game 1, he’s going to get a whole new up-close look at them when the puck drops on the Toronto-Florida second-round series Monday night (8 p.m., CBC, Sportsnet).
No team plays more in the blue paint than the Panthers, with Reinhart and Tkachuk the masters at it.
“I’ve got to try to find the puck, battle through them and make the save,” Stolarz said. “Our defenceman did a great job last series clearing traffic out, so it’s up to me to make that initial save, try to control it as best I can.”
That last series included Matthew Tkachuk’s younger brother, Brady, who plays much the same kind of game.
“I saw one Tkachuk in Round 1 and now I get another one in Round 2,” Stolarz said. “Obviously I’m a little familiar with him, having played with him last year. It’s gonna be a good battle. He’s a hard worker. He likes to get in the crease and around the paint. That’s where his office is. You’re going to want to be aware when he’s on the ice.”
pc28forward’s wife Stephanie gave birth to their first child, a boy.
Another close friend is 36-year-old Sergei Bobrovsky, who mentored Stolarz, 31, last season. Their numbers coming into the second round are eerily identical: Both have .921 save percentages and 2.21 goals-against averages. Both have saved 80 per cent of the high-danger shots that have come their way.
“It’s going to be exciting,” Stolarz said. “It’s the second round. It doesn’t matter who you face, you want to go out there and you want to outduel him. It’s about making one more stop than the other guy.”
It could be argued the Leafs haven’t had the quality of goaltending like they do with Stolarz and backup Joseph Woll since the days of Frederik Andersen, or maybe even as far back as Ed Belfour.
The take-no-prisoners Panthers led the NHL in hits during the regular season.
They’ve run into an absurd number of elite goalies over their nine straight post-seasons, a steady diet of those with Vezinas or Jennings trophies on their resumès: Tuukka Rask, Carey Price, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jeremy Swayman and Bobrovsky. Even Ottawa goalie Linus Ullmark had a Vezina and a Jennings from his 2022-23 season in Boston.
“It’s just about winning the series,” Stolarz said. “It doesn’t matter if he’s a Vezina winner, a Hall of Famer, a guy making his first start down the other end. It’s your job to go out there and stop the puck.”
Stolarz, a career backup and journeyman, doesn’t have any individual trophies. But his .926 save percentage was the best in the league this year among starters, one point better than the Vezina favourite Connor Hellebuyck.
Stolarz said the recipe for beating Florida is the same as the one against Ottawa, where the Leafs protected their net while making life uncomfortable for the goalie at the other end.
“Ottawa was a good little jump-start for us to lean into Florida,” Stolarz said. “They play a similar system, that tough, rugged style. It was a nice to kind of get a little bit of a warm-up in. (The Panthers) are obviously the kings of the castle, having won the Stanley Cup last year. We’re going to want to go out there, work hard and battle.”
To join the conversation set a first and last name in your user profile.
Sign in or register for free to join the Conversation