{"id":474942,"date":"2025-09-28T15:33:50","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T19:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=474942"},"modified":"2025-09-28T15:38:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T19:38:03","slug":"toronto-maple-leafs-make-big-move-concerning-goaltender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/09\/28\/toronto-maple-leafs-make-big-move-concerning-goaltender\/","title":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs Make A Big Move Concerning a Goaltender"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/09\/27\/puck-drop-preview-toronto-maple-leafs-2025-26-season-nhl-predictions\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> had to make a big move, and they did so on the second Sunday of the preseason. Today it was announced goaltender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/stolaan01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-09-28_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Stolarz<\/a> signs a four-year contract extension with the club. This will make him a free agent in the summer of 2030, as he was already under contract for the upcoming 2025-26 NHL season. The contract carries with it an annual average value of $3.75 million. Let&#8217;s find out why this deal makes so much sense from an individual and team perspective.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Anthony Stolarz is signing a four-year extension with the <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/leafs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#leafs<\/a> carrying a $3.75M AAV<\/p>\n<p>First to report: <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KevinWeekes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@KevinWeekes<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/reporterchris\/status\/1972351313775395237?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 28, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Anthony Stolarz Signs With Leafs Until 2030<\/h3>\n<p>The move comes on the heels of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/09\/27\/nhl-rumours-maple-leafs-goalie-market\" target=\"_self\">Leafs being down to one NHL goaltender<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/w\/wolljo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-09-28_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joseph Woll<\/a> has recently gone on a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/09\/23\/toronto-maple-leafs-training-camp-2025-26-tough-news-goaltender\" target=\"_self\">leave of absence from the club<\/a>. His timetable for return remains uncertain. Yes, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hildede01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-09-28_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dennis Hildeby<\/a> does have six games of NHL experience, but that&#8217;s hardly enough when you consider yourself a team engineered for a deep Stanley Cup playoff run. Since that happened they brought back a familiar face on a professional tryout. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/reimeja01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-09-28_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Reimer<\/a> is back in Toronto, but it is hard to know for how long. If he does well in his audition, maybe he can become the Leafs third stringer.<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s not what we are here to discuss exactly. The Leafs made a move today to give a bode of confidence to their starting netminder. Signing the 31-year-old until the summer of 2030. Moreover, maybe he didn&#8217;t quite get how much money he wanted, but it is a very important contract, from an organizationally standpoint. It doesn&#8217;t run up the team&#8217;s spending and allows to renew, say for instance Joseph Woll when the time comes. In addition, it would&#8217;ve been difficult to justify for a player of Stolarz&#8217;s age, with only 142 games of NHL experience under his belt much more annual salary.<\/p>\n<p>So, it speaks to two aspects about Stolarz. The first, is that he will be\u00a0 in the running to be the Toronto Maple Leafs starting goalie until he&#8217;s 36. Furthermore, Stolarz put his team first, and took a little less than he probably could&#8217;ve commanded on the open market.<\/p>\n<p>Stolarz stats are quite impressive, and why he <em>is<\/em> the Leafs starter. He led the entire NHL with a .926 save percentage. Also, his career save percentage is a very impressive .917. His career regular season record is 64-39-12, with 12 shutouts, and a decent 2.55 goals-against average. With only four career playoff wins under his belt, this contract gives him opportunity to grow that number by a lot.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Maple Leafs had to make a big move, and they did so on the second Sunday of the preseason. Today it was announced goaltender Anthony Stolarz signs a four-year contract extension with the club. This will make him a free agent in the summer of 2030, as he was already under contract for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4222,"featured_media":465100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,4547,34,4548],"tags":[1169,322,1092,5951],"class_list":["post-474942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leafs","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-anthony-stolarz","tag-james-reimer","tag-joseph-woll","tag-toronto-maple-leafs-news"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474942"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":474949,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474942\/revisions\/474949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}