{"id":518616,"date":"2026-03-23T15:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T15:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/518616\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T15:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T15:16:13","slug":"maple-leafs-recall-dennis-hildeby-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/518616\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs Recall Dennis Hildeby \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Maple Leafs announced they\u2019ve recalled goaltender\u00a0Dennis Hildeby<\/a>\u00a0from AHL Toronto on an emergency basis. He could dress tomorrow against the Bruins in place of\u00a0Anthony Stolarz<\/a>, who was scheduled to start Saturday night\u2019s loss to the Senators but had to go to the hospital to get checked out after taking a puck to the throat during warmups. Stolarz skated with the team before practice this morning, sporting a neck guard, per Nick Barden of The Hockey News<\/a>, so he shouldn\u2019t miss too much time.<\/p>\n

It has been an incredibly trying season for the 32-year-old Stolarz, losing his tenuous grip on the Leafs\u2019 starting job to\u00a0Joseph Woll<\/a>. After back-to-back seasons of leading the league in save percentage in limited tandem\/backup deployment, his numbers have taken a nosedive to a .894 SV%, 3.34 GAA, and 8-9-3 record in 21 starts and one relief appearance. He has accounted for -8.2 goals saved above expected after a great 25.8 figure last season, per MoneyPuck<\/a>. That led to Toronto making him available at the trade deadline<\/a> despite him signing a four-year, $15MM extension last September, but no deal was made.<\/p>\n

Injuries have long stopped the high-ceiling Stolarz from ever becoming a true #1 option. That hasn\u2019t changed this year. A lingering upper-body injury kept him out of the lineup for over two months earlier this year, rendering him unavailable for 33 games. With the playoffs out of reach in Toronto, there\u2019s no reason for the Leafs to rush him back after what was surely a scary ordeal on Saturday, even if he\u2019s been cleared.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, they have a great third-string option in Hildeby. The 24-year-old was exceptional as Woll\u2019s backup earlier this year when Stolarz was sidelined, recording a .910 SV%, 2.90 GAA and seven quality starts in 19 total outings. A lack of goal support meant he posted a 5-6-4 record, but his 8.9 goals saved above expected during that run are still far ahead of what Woll and Stolarz have produced with far more usage. With Hildeby losing his waiver-exempt status next season, the Leafs will want to find a way to keep him around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Maple Leafs announced they\u2019ve recalled goaltender\u00a0Dennis Hildeby\u00a0from AHL Toronto on an emergency basis. He could dress tomorrow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5106],"tags":[54,3081,5,20,5172,4,66,31,5171,405],"class_list":["post-518616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-anthony-stolarz","tag-dennis-hildeby","tag-hockey","tag-maple-leafs","tag-mapleleafs","tag-nhl","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-torontomapleleafs","tag-transactions"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}