The Jersey Hitmen were thrilled to see one of their pre-USPHL alumni win the Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers on Monday, June 24. Former Hitmen goalie Anthony Stolarz was a member of the 2010-11 Jersey Hitmen team in the former Empire Junior Hockey League (a precursor to the current USPHL Elite conference).
Stolarz joined the Panthers originally on July 1, 2023, as a free agent. He played in 27 regular season games, posting a 2.03 GAA with a .925 save percentage and a 16-7-2 record in the regular season. He also appeared in one Stanley Cup Finals game in relief on June 15.
Speaking about Stolarz in a 2016 article about the former Hitmen goalie, the current NCDC Hitmen Head Coach Toby Harris had this to say: “He was a big, gangly kid that competed so hard in goal. We knew the jump from 16U to junior hockey would be a big one, but we took a chance on him and he performed very well for us.”
Stolarz appeared in 37 games for the Hitmen in the former Empire Junior Hockey League, coming out of the New Jersey Devils Youth program. He posted a 10-4-0-0 record with a 3.19 GAA and a .902 save percentage in the 2010-11 regular season and a 3.13 GAA along with a win in three playoff games. After one season in Tier II hockey, Stolarz split the 2012-13 (the USPHL’s inaugural season) between the University of Nebraska-Omaha and the OHL’s London Knights. He helped the Knights win the championship that year and the next year had the OHL’s best save percentage at .926.
He was an AHL All-Star with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms during the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. In 2016-17, he made his NHL debut with the Philadelphia Flyers and played in seven games, while also playing in 29 AHL games with the Phantoms.
His first year of playing the majority of games in the NHL was 2018-19, when he split the season between the Flyers and the Edmonton Oilers for 18 regular season games. He joined the Anaheim Ducks in 2019-20, playing the majority of that season with the AHL’s San Diego Gulls. He played a career-high 28 games in 2021-22 with the Ducks, going 12-8-3 with a 2.67 GAA and a .917 save percentage. He played another 19 games with the Ducks in 2022-23 before signing with Florida as a free agent.
The USPHL and NCDC join the Jersey Hitmen in congratulating their organizational alum Anthony Stolarz on winning the Stanley Cup!
