diff --git a/stdlib/LinearAlgebra/src/bidiag.jl b/stdlib/LinearAlgebra/src/bidiag.jl
index 89bf143b3a973..9bcfc33944d99 100644
--- a/stdlib/LinearAlgebra/src/bidiag.jl
+++ b/stdlib/LinearAlgebra/src/bidiag.jl
@@ -503,7 +503,8 @@ end
 const SpecialMatrix = Union{Bidiagonal,SymTridiagonal,Tridiagonal}
 # to avoid ambiguity warning, but shouldn't be necessary
 *(A::AbstractTriangular, B::SpecialMatrix) = Array(A) * Array(B)
-*(A::SpecialMatrix, B::SpecialMatrix) = Array(A) * Array(B)
+# moving this to sparsearrays since it needs spzeros
+# *(A::SpecialMatrix, B::SpecialMatrix) = mul!(spzeros(size(A)...), A, B)
 
 #Generic multiplication
 *(A::Bidiagonal{T}, B::AbstractVector{T}) where {T} = *(Array(A), B)
diff --git a/stdlib/SparseArrays/src/SparseArrays.jl b/stdlib/SparseArrays/src/SparseArrays.jl
index 95ef9560a809e..f693665ddee67 100644
--- a/stdlib/SparseArrays/src/SparseArrays.jl
+++ b/stdlib/SparseArrays/src/SparseArrays.jl
@@ -52,5 +52,6 @@ similar(B::Bidiagonal, ::Type{T}, dims::Union{Dims{1},Dims{2}}) where {T} = spze
 similar(D::Diagonal, ::Type{T}, dims::Union{Dims{1},Dims{2}}) where {T} = spzeros(T, dims...)
 similar(S::SymTridiagonal, ::Type{T}, dims::Union{Dims{1},Dims{2}}) where {T} = spzeros(T, dims...)
 similar(M::Tridiagonal, ::Type{T}, dims::Union{Dims{1},Dims{2}}) where {T} = spzeros(T, dims...)
+*(A::Union{Bidiagonal,SymTridiagonal,Tridiagonal}, B::Union{Bidiagonal,SymTridiagonal,Tridiagonal}) = mul!(spzeros(size(A)...), A, B)
 
 end