Goaltender Anthony Stolarz’s NHL draft year has been ‘a total 180′

From an open tryout into the great wide open of a possible NHL career.

Very few can say for certainty who among the much-ballyhooed goalies in the NHL draft class of 2012 will pan out, but none have had the arc of Anthony Stolarz over the past 10 months. Last summer, the 6-foot-5, 200-pound native of Jackson, N.J., was searching frantically for a place to play goal. The Jersey kid ended up getting it down near the Gulf of Mexico with the North American Hockey League's Corpus Christi IceRays.

"From last summer until now, it's been a complete 180," says Stolarz, who was NHL Central Scouting's fourth-ranked North American goalie in April after being ranked 21st at midseason. "I'm so grateful for it, a lot has changed in a year. I just have to attribute that to hard work."

Stolarz could not have pictured this a year ago.

"Last summer, I was still searching for a team — I was cut from two Eastern Junior Hockey League teams," he says. "I got recommended by my summer coaches to Corpus Christi. Went to an open camp in Albany, New York. Anyone could come. Got invited to the main camp, made the team from there. I got an opportunity to play and got noticed."

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