Why Maple Leafs Coach Jim Hiller Finally Decided To Give Anthony Stolarz His First Consecutive Start Of The Season

The Toronto Maple Leafs are going with Anthony Stolarz as the starting goaltender against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night.

This will be the first time this season that Stolarz will start consecutive games for the Maple Leafs. He last featured on Thursday against the Minnesota Wild, stopping 21 of 25 shots and finishing the contest with an .840 save percentage.

Stolarz also faced the Oilers already this season, posting a .938 SP in a 7-2 victory on Oct. 24.

This season, he's posted a .900 SP and a 2.90 goals-against average, with a 5-3-0 record in eight appearances.

"I think he's been good for a long time," Maple Leafs coach Jim Hiller said Saturday morning. "Yeah, I mean he's big. Not a lot of rebounds. Played well against Edmonton last time. So there's, you know, there's different things."

The last time Stolarz played consecutive games for the Maple Leafs was near the end of the 2025-26 season, when he played against the Anaheim Ducks on March 30 and the San Jose Sharks on April 2. He finished both games with a .875 SP, winning the first one 5-4 in overtime, followed by a 4-1 loss.

Hiller has said in the past that the team has a plan for their goaltending rotation. Typically, Stolarz would play about once a week, with the addition of back-to-back situations.

But at their workout session at the Rogers Centre, Hiller said that the starter for the Oilers game wasn't decided yet, signalling that there was likely an alteration to the original plan.

So what went into the decision of putting in Stolarz over Sergei Bobrovsky?

"Same things that goes into every decision," Hiller said after Saturday's morning skate. "Just some thought, some discussion and then make a decision."

Bobrovsky hasn't been great after signing his three-year, $21-million ticket on the first day of free agency. After playing 13 games this season, earning a 3-8-2 record, Bobrovsky has registered a .881 SP and a 3.47 GAA.

"He's had some really good games, he's had some average games, like every player, no different than forwards, defensemen, everybody else," Hiller said. "Power play, penalty kill. Just keep working on areas of the game. You try to get better. So that's that goes for everybody, though. We can't look to one guy. I mean, you can poke holes in our game in different areas and different players. Everybody's trying to get better."

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