TORONTO — The only one not cutting Dennis Hildeby some slack is Dennis Hildeby.
In an ideal world, the third-stringer wouldn’t even be here, getting pumped by the Columbus Blue Jackets for a second time in his maiden NHL voyage. The 23-year-old would be down on the farm, getting more action, more development.
And less of a humbling.
“Disappointing. Frustrating. I think I obviously could have done a little better,” the soft-spoken giant said Wednesday, following a Toronto Maple Leafs’ 5-1 home loss.
Hildeby surrendered four goals on the first 14 shots he faced and finished with a .778 save percentage on the night.
Were Anthony Stolarz (knee) healthy or Joseph Woll more rested, Hildeby would not have started at all.
Instead, the six-foot-seven prospect dropped to his butterfly too early on a first-period shorthanded rush by Adam Fantilli and never recovered.
“Well, he wants to be better. I mean, he’s got to have the first one, I think. Whatever,” head coach Craig Berube dismissed. “But he hasn’t played in a long time either. Listen, he’s trying to battle. You know, I’m not going to sit here and blame the goalie. We’re a team game. We got to be better. We had to score some goals, and we didn’t.”
The Leafs did control the run of play and generated all three of the game’s power plays, yet they failed to give Hildeby the requisite run support.
“They won the net-fronts,” said Morgan Rielly, minus-2. “You want to do your best to support your goalie. At times, I didn’t think we did that.”
“(They) kept us to the outside. We had a lot of zone time. You might be feeling good, but not enough traffic in front, not enough second opportunities,” added Jake McCabe, minus-3. “It’s a frustrating game.”
Like Berube and the skaters, we won’t blame Hildeby, either.
He may be 224 pounds, but he’s punching above his weight class and was no match on this night for a dialled-in Elvis Merzlikins, who stopped 28 of the 29 pucks flown at the other end.
Since Stolarz went down to injury, Hildeby has mostly worn the ballcap. Yo-yoing a bit between the farm and the show, his breaks between NHL starts have lasted 21 days, six days, and 11 days.
A schedule that sporadic is tricky. Ask any goalie: They thrive off rhythm.
“Every goalie in this league has done the same journey. It is challenging, for sure, but you just kind of find a way to deal with it. But I absolutely love my time up here. I’m having a lot of fun, even though the results haven’t been there so far. So, I just try and take every day as it comes and enjoy it,” Hildeby said.
“You just gotta find a way, and I need to do it a little better. Figure out a couple changes maybe.”
The change we suggest at this point is giving Matt Murray another go as Woll’s backup.
Is that not why the Leafs re-signed Murray anyway, to be this winter’s Martin Jones?
Not that Murray has performed head-and-shoulders above Hildeby (.878), but it would better serve the Maple Leafs to let the younger Hildeby get more game reps and build his confidence in the AHL.
“Listen, he’s developing up here, too,” Berube countered.
“Getting practice time, getting NHL shooters, getting to work with our goalie coach. But I get what you’re saying. Probably the ideal situation is he’s playing more games down in the minors. But that’s not the situation right now.”
The Marlies are way out in California on a long road trip until February.
Murray, 30, has been finding his groove lately. He’s up to three shutouts in AHL, two of them last week, and his Marlies record has improved to 7-4-2 with a .933 save percentage.
Fire up the engines. Make the switch.
For Hildeby’s sake.
Fox’s Fast Five
• In his second-ever game back home playing in front of enough friends and family members to fill a school bus, Nobleton, Ont., native Fantilli scored his first-ever hat trick.
Columbus’s top-line centre admitted to feeling overwhelmed during last season’s Toronto return, when he was held off the scoresheet in a wild OT win for the Jackets.
“I had 90 to 100 people here, and it gets to you. But to be honest, it’s an experience you’ll remember for a while,” Fantilli said Wednesday morning. “I’m like, ‘All right, I’ve done this before,’ and I can just play the game and have fun.
“I’m playing in front of a lot eyes of people I love and people that are good friends of mine, so try to play extra hard and try to show up for them.”
Mission accomplished.
• Matthew Knies suffered an upper-body injury from this collision with Kirill Marchenko and did not participate in the final period:
Berube said he’d know more about the severity of his top-line winger’s injury Thursday.
Knies, you’ll recall, already suffered a head injury earlier this season.
• Best coincidental minors of 2025 (and maybe ever)!
Elvis Merzlikins snatched Auston Matthews’ stick out of his hands while the captain flew by his crease. So, a frustrated Matthews grabbed the goalie’s stick, which was laying the ice, in return.
Merzlikins got penalized for holding the stick, while Matthews was sent to the box for playing with an illegal stick.
“He took my stick out of my hand. So I just saw his stick and decided to play with his for a second,” Matthews said. “I gotta read the rulebook, I guess.”
• Simon Benoit was letting ’er fly during his meeting with reporters. Love that he feels comfortable being himself in front of the cameras.
• Roars from 50-plus supporters could be heard when an assist and, later, a goal got announced for Luca Del Bel Belluz — the Woodbridge, Ont., native whom Columbus recalled from the AHL in time for a giddy homecoming.
“It’s where I fell in love with the game,” the 21-year-old centre said. “It’s not like any of those people asked for tickets. They found their own way to get their own tickets to support me. I can’t thank them enough.”
A massive Leafs fan as a boy, Del Bell Belluz not only studied Matthews’ game but attended the 2016 NHL Draft watch party with his dad and a friend at Real Sports to see the Leafs select Matthews first overall.
You couldn’t wipe the smile off the kid’s face at morning skate.
“Definitely going to be cool to get out there and share the ice with him,” he said.
