Starting for the second night in a row, Joseph Woll made 38 saves. Expected starter Anthony Stolarz took a puck to the throat in warmups and was taken to a hospital for precautionary imaging.
“It’s tough on Joseph for sure,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “Played last night, now he’s got to prepare and everything. And I think he did a great job, but the team’s got to respond better than that. I thought in the first period we did. First was good, it was a good period. … And second period, not very good.”
Berube said that Stolarz was to meet the team at the plane heading back home to Toronto and was out of the hospital. He did not have an update on Stolarz’s condition.
“Obviously, it’s not ideal circumstances, but as a team, you’ve got to rally around them and we’ve got to play for 60 minutes,” Toronto forward John Tavares said. “I saw (Stolarz) before he headed out and seemed to be doing OK. I think everything is pretty precautionary, but yeah, tough when circumstances like that happen.”
Anthony Kervin, a 26-year-old Ottawa native, was the emergency backup goalie for the Maple Leafs. He last played for Arnprior of the Eastern Ontario Super Hockey League.
“You’ve got to prepare for anything,” Woll said. “You never know, it’s still my job to be ready. So yeah, just kind of jumped into where I was if I was playing and just kind of hit play.”
Stutzle gave Ottawa a 1-0 lead on the power play at 14:58 of the first period, beating Woll from the right face-off dot to the short side.
“I think it’s a big rivalry,” Stutzle said. “I think (in the) playoffs last year we played (a) pretty good series, and obviously they did too, and they’re a good team, they’re large, good players, and obviously they’re in the standings a little behind us (13 points behind Detroit). But like I said, we can’t underestimate anyone, and that’s what we didn’t do tonight.”