Anthony Stolarz is ready for his close-up.
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It arrives on Sunday night a Scotiabank Arena in Game 1 against the Ottawa Senators, when Stolarz will make his first start in a Stanley Cup playoff game.
“I’m extremely blessed and grateful to be able to play this game (for a living),” Stolarz said after practice on Saturday at the Ford Performance Centre. “The way I look at it is just another game. I’m a competitor, so to be able to battle with the 20 other guys, it’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to it.”
The start was well-earned by Stolarz, who led the National Hockey League with a .926 save percentage during the regular season. The 31-year-old soaked up as much as he could a year ago when he backed up Sergei Bobrovsky in the Florida Panthers’ run to a Stanley Cup.
“Every game is basically a one-game series,” Stolarz said. “You have to have a short-term memory. Being able to watch a true pro like him last year helped me a lot, and has prepared me to get ready.”
How Stolarz performs, of course, will be crucial in the Leafs’ desire to win the best-of-seven series. If he is good as he has been, the Leafs should be set; if for whatever reason Stolarz falters, Joseph Woll has the ability to take over and play well.
What the Leafs’ chance for success boils down to — and this applies to every team in the Stanley Cup tournament — is how the best players execute and produce.
In Toronto, that’s captain Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, a trio that has a trail of first-round losses (except 2023, when the Leafs beat Tampa Bay in the first round and then lost to Florida).
Marner’s future with the Leafs hangs in the balance as the playoffs begin. The longer the Leafs play, the better the chance, perhaps, that Marner doesn’t go anywhere in free agency and re-signs with Toronto. A first-round upset by Ottawa? Well, we probably don’t have to spell out Marner’s summer plans for you.
About the outside pressure of advancing past the first round, it didn’t sound like Marner is going to be tossing and turning at night.
“I don’t think we’re caring about any of that,” Marner said. “We’re focused as a team in here. We’re not focused on anything people are saying.
“You know it’s going to be a grind. You know it’s going to be ups and downs. You jus have to stay together and stick through it, and lean on one another. You know it’s not going to be perfect every single night, and you have to be ready to pick each other up.”
We can’t argue with that. Some of what’s being said about the Leafs, too, is that under coach Craig Berube in his first year is that the team is more playoff-ready than it has been in the past.
It’s stingier defensively, and certainly the Leafs are not a group that gets pushed around.
“We’ve changed personnel, we’ve changed coaches,” Matthews said. “Maybe we played a little bit of a different style of game that think is more suitable to playoffs.
“In the end, it’s about executing, playing as a team, competing, being physical.
“The message that they’ve wanted to (make clear) from the beginning is being harder to play against. We’ve definitely done that throughout the year.
“Now is the time of the year you have to put it all together. Over the last couple weeks, we’ve competed hard and I think our game has been trending in the right direction.”
The noise in Toronto never dins and it only increases when the Leafs get going in the playoffs. It’s a team that earned home-ice advantage doing a lot of good things, but it will unravel if there’s not a long run.
Winning the first round, for example, only to get beaten up in the second round, such as what happened in 2023, won’t cut it.
Berube was asked about quieting the outside noise. He answered with what sounded like direct advice for his players.
“Don’t turn your phone on, don’t turn the TV on,” Berube said. “It’s hard. It’s around. It’s part of it. You have to handle it and deal with it.
“Go out and compete, compete your ass off and play as hard as you can and good things happen. You can control those things. You know you can control your effort and your competitiveness and doing what’s best for the team. That’s important.”
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