Leafs Sunk In Utah By Subpar Stolarz

The Toronto Maple Leafs finished up their three-game road swing on NHL Frozen Frenzy night with a frenetic effort in a 5-4 loss to the Utah Mammoth at the Delta Center  Tuesday night. The Leafs trailed by three goals on two occasions in the second period, but rallied to close the margin to 5-4 with just under nine minutes left, but could not beat Mammoth goalie Karel Vejmelka for the equalizer.  

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Auston Matthews, Jack Roslovic, John Tavares, and rookie Gavin McKenna scored for Toronto, who once again played with 11 forwards and seven blueliners without Chris Tanev available. While the effort was not a Mona Lisa in terms of a defensive performance, the Leafs were ultimately undone by another underwhelming outing by backup Anthony Stolarz. 

After getting a pair of Herculean efforts between the pipes from Sergei Bobrovsky in Vegas and Colorado that earned the Leafs three of a possible four points, Stolarz was sieve-like in his effort, allowing five goals on 28 shots. Except for Mammoth’s second goal by Vincent Trocheck early in the middle frame, each Utah tally was attributable to a miscue by the Leafs goalie. 

Daniil But’s opening goal featured a move that turned Morgan Rielly into a pretzel, but resulted in the 21-year-old beating Stolarz from a bad angle on the short side. Mikhail Sergachev’s short-handed goal to make it 3-0 was a result of Stolarz poke-checking the puck right to the Mammoth blueliner at the side of the net.

Toronto came alive shortly after that, when Matthews responded on the power play to narrow the lead to 3-1, but once again, big Stolarz came up small, allowing a Dylan Guenther wrist shot from long range to sneak between his chest and arm to make it 4-1. Roslovic narrowed the lead to 4-2 late in the second, but Stolarz poured cold water on the Leafs momentum with another leaky goal by MacKenzie Weegar with 40 seconds left. 

The Leafs drew to within one in the third with a Tavares power-play goal, thanks to a long headman pass from Stolarz (one of the few positive things that he did in the game), and a McKenna tally set up by William Nylander, but could not erase the deficit caused mainly by their goalie’s mistakes. 

After a solid effort against the NY Islanders, the veteran backup made only 21 stops in the Leafs 5-4 comeback win over Nashville, followed by the bad outing against Utah. Stolarz has not been the same since receiving the People’s Elbow from former teammate Sam Bennett in Game 1 of the Panthers series. 

His multiple stints on the IR contributed to Toronto’s first-half struggles last season, and the four-year extension given to him by former GM Brad Treliving was grounds enough for him to be fired. During the summer, GM John Chayka faced the dilemma of moving on from one goalie with term on his deal. 

With Joseph Woll, there were teams like Philadelphia who were interested in the younger, less injury-prone netminder and were willing to give up something for him. With Stolarz under contract for four more years at $3.75 million, it would have required a significant sweetener for a team to take on that contract. 

Through four games with the struggling Flyers, Woll has outgoaltended starter Dan Vladar and is responsible for two of Philadelphia’s three points, with a 2.95 GAA and .914 sv %. Stolarz is 2-1, but has a 3.32 GAA and .875 save %. The Leafs will be in a tight race in the East to make the playoffs, which means every point will count. They cannot afford more performances like that from the goaltender in eminently winnable games.