Anthony Stolarz was fired up about his team's urgency through the first six games.
Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz did not hold back on his feelings following his team’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Seattle Kraken.
"It was a good third period, but in the first two periods, you know, we kind of let them walk all over us and we just didn't play our game,” Stolarz said after the game. "They outworked us in front of the net. They blocked shots. They beat us up and down the ice”.
The goaltender made 24 saves on 28 shots in a game that saw the 6-foot-6 netminder get run over by Kraken defenseman Mason Marchment. Although Toronto got a power play, Stolarz was clearly unhappy with the incident, pushing the net off its moorings in retaliation.
This is not the first time a player has crashed into Stolarz easily this season. Detroit Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin crashed into him during a 6-3 loss, a situation that saw Stolarz retaliate by whacking his stick at the Detroit star among other instances.
"It's just playing hard. I mean, maybe we can take a page out of their book and start getting to the net,” a visibly frustrated Stolarz lamented. “For us we like to go low to high and shoot, but for their goalie, it's like playing catch in the yard. He’s seeing everything and we're not making it difficult. We made it difficult in the third and look what happened. We came out, tied the game, got a point out of it, almost scored with five seconds left, but it's a little too little, too late.
“We’re six games into the season, enough's enough and we kind of got to start picking it up here,"
The Leafs fell to 3-2-1 this season following the defeat. While the team has some new players up front, Stolarz dismissed a lack of chemistry as an excuse, especially pointing to William Nylander’s broken coverage of Kraken defenseman Josh Mahura leading to the overtime-winning goal.
“A lot of guys have been here for a while,” Stolarz stressed as he continued to criticize the defensive effort on the final play.
"Overtime, you can't let someone be up the ice there and get a clear-cut breakaway. I mean, a minute left, you know, you want to be on the ice in that situation, you got to work hard. Got to work back and it costs us a point there.
"I mean, at the end of the day, it's early. We do have some time to gel, but I mean, it's more or less just about working hard. And when we work hard, the results come. We saw it in the third period and we can't play for 20 minutes, 30 minutes. We got to do it for a complete 60”.
Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube agreed with Stolarz's assessment of the club having a difficultyclearing their own net.
"We did a good job of it last year, so I don't know what the key is. I mean, it's a willingness to do it more than anything for me," Berube said.
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