It's not uncommon for an injured player to not be around the team and then slowly we see reports of them popping in at team practices as they make their way back. But for Toronto Maple Leafs netminder Anthony Stolarz, he might as well be a ghost right now.
Stolarz has been out with an upper-body injury since he had to leave the Nov. 11 game against the Boston Bruins before it was over. There has been rare and soft timelines given by members of the team, trying to not put anything concrete down so that people can expect him to be back by a certain date, but on Sunday afternoon it was taken to a whole new level.
Any clarity on Stolarz? Berube: "There's actually not right now. He’s still not on the ice, so I'm not sure yet where he is at." On Woll: "He's progressing the right way. Like I said, it's probably going to be this week." Tanev has scheduled meeting with Dr. on Wednesday. #Leafs
— Terry Koshan 🇺🇦 (@koshtorontosun) December 7, 2025
Craig Berube gives non-answer about Anthony Stolarz's injury status
When asked about Stolarz's status, Leafs head coach Craig Berube remained vague but really made it seem like he has no idea or has not heard word about his starting netminder in quite some time.
"There's actually not right now," Berube said when asked if there's an update on Stolarz's health. "He's still not on the ice, so I'm not sure yet where he is at."
Now, we completely understand that Berube has the difficult job of being the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the difficulty is only amplified when the team has had a poor start to their season like they have. So, there are so many things buzzing around him all throughout the day that he might miss if he was given an injury status update. But it feels like a whole other thing when he really makes it seem like he barely knows who Stolarz is.
He's not skating right now and the team appears to not be diving too deep to get a clear timeline for his return. There really is no "day-to-day" or "week-to-week" verbage that we can rely on -- Stolarz is just out and he's hurt.
There is some good news for the Leafs, at least
On the other side of the update, we did get at least some positive word that goaltender Joseph Woll is set to return this upcoming week.
Woll had to exit the game earlier this week against the Carolina Hurricanes with a reported lower-body injury and has been out since. Now, we're just thankful that there is at least a timeline and we can try and guess when the Leafs will get one of their regular netminders back.
Toronto's game against Montreal was the first game in this stretch where they had to dive deep into the depth chart with a Dennis Hildeby-Artur Akhtyamov tandem. But thankfully, the starter Hildeby was able to stand on his head, saving 33 of the 34 shots he faced to will the team to overtime, for them to just lose in a shootout to the archrivals.
The Leafs host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday, the San Jose Sharks on Thursday, and then Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday. Here's hoping that Woll is back at some point during that stretch and Hildeby won't be relied upon to get through that quasi gauntlet.