The Toronto Maple Leafs had one of the best goaltending tandems in the National Hockey League in 2024-25 — and general manager Brad Treliving wants to keep it together.
As both The Fourth Period's David Pagnotta and The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun reported earlier this week, the Leafs and Anthony Stolarz have begun contract negotiations on a potential extension.
Stolarz is the most notable pending unrestricted free agent on the roster, but the GM doesn't have any plans to let the 31-year-old get to the open market next summer.
“Anthony has come in and has been terrific,” Treliving told LeBrun on Tuesday. “Really, him and [Joseph Woll], you look at any metric you want, I think they were as good a goaltending tandem as there was in the league, and really were a backbone for us.
“We’ve certainly explored some things with Anthony and his representative, and we’d love to find a way to get something done. If there’s something that both sides are comfortable with, we’ll look at it. And we’ve been in those discussions for some time right now. We’ll see what the coming days bring.”
Stolarz is entering the final season of a two-year, $5 million contract he signed with the team back in July of 2024. He was excellent in his first campaign in Ontario, sporting a 21-8-3 record along with a sparkling 2.14 goals-against average and a league-best .926 save percentage.
The Edison, New Jersey native appeared in 34 games, the most of his career after backing up John Gibson in Anaheim and Sergei Bobrovsky in Florida previously. Also adding four shutouts, Stolarz finished fifth in Vezina Trophy voting.
Only Anthony Stolarz concern is injury history
Stolarz was objectively excellent in 2024-25, but the veteran has a long injury history — and he's only been a starting goaltender for one NHL season.
The 2024 Stanley Cup champion underwent knee surgery in the middle of the year, which was his second time going under the knife in three campaigns. That kept him out of the lineup for nearly two months.
Still, he was Toronto's starter in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and helped them defeat their divisional rival Ottawa Senators in six games. He sustained a concussion on a controversial Sam Bennett hit in Game 1 of Round 2 against the Panthers and didn't play again.
The former second-round selection in the 2012 NHL Draft has had a .920 SV% or better in four of the last six years, and if he can stay healthy, he's a top option. Along with Woll, who is locked up until the summer of 2028, the Leafs boast one of the better one-two punches in the National Hockey League.
It'll be interesting to see if Stolarz and the Leafs agree to an extension before the start of the 2025-26 campaign — and what a potential new contract will look like for the veteran.
