Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving
Photo credit: Postmedia News

The Toronto Maple Leafs have tried for decades to reverse their fortune and finally earn their next Stanley Cup. However, this past season, they once again failed to make a lasting impression in the playoffs after their loss in the first round to the Boston Bruins and had to wait for their real big moves to come during the offseason.

“BOSTON SURVIVES 👏👏

David Pastrnak scored on a feed from Hampus Lindholm at 1:54 of overtime to give the Boston Bruins a 2-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7 on Saturday night. 👀

(FUN?) FACT: This was the Leafs’ seventh straight Game 7 loss. đŸ« ”

Brad Treliving seemed to be taking advantage of the offseason to try to develop more depth across the team, leaving the core untouched. Among their newly acquired players are former Dallas Stars defenseman Chris Tanev and recent Florida Panther Stanley Cup winner Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

However, one of Toronto’s moves may end up being a bigger problem than Treliving would have hoped. The Maple Leafs recently signed another recent Florida Panthers Stanley Cup-winner, goaltender: Anthony Stolarz, who will work in tandem with junior starting goalie Joseph Woll. Though Stolarz had one of his best seasons, according to Scott Maxwell of the Daily Faceoff, he is rather unlikely to perform at the top of his game.

“Stolarz has only established a consistent backup role for himself in the past few seasons, but in 2023-24, he was arguably the best backup goaltender in the league, with the second-best save percentage among goalies with at least 20 games played and the seventh-best GSAx in the league. However, with a career .915 SV%, it’s tough to expect him to repeat that for next season. He did have an .899 SV% the year prior, so last season may have been the positive regression. But I’d expect him to come back down to Earth next season, especially behind a Toronto Maple Leafs team that will probably not be as good defensively as the Panthers were last year, even with their upgrades on the blueline.”

Though Anthony Stolarz had a solid run as the backup for Sergei Bobrovsky, it is hard to know how successful he can be in Toronto. Hopefully, he can perform as well as he did last year and prove himself a greater asset than liability.