Now healthy, Anthony Stolarz has opportunity with Edmonton Oilers

On Feb. 15, Anthony Stolarz was traded from the Flyers to the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for goalie Cam Talbot. (Getty Images)

For a while there it looked like he might be the first New Jersey-born goaltender to make it to the NHL and the first to leave it — possibly for good.

After making a strong initial impression in his debut 2016-17 season with the Philadelphia Flyers, Anthony Stolarz missed almost the entire 2017-18 campaign due to a pair of knee surgeries.

By the start of the current slate, Stolarz had tumbled all the way down to third-string netminder on the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms.

Then a strange thing happened. Goaltenders started falling faster than bowling pins at Asbury Lanes, not far from his Jackson, N.J., hometown.