{"id":770156,"date":"2026-06-30T15:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/770156\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:37:08","slug":"ottawa-senators-working-to-sign-samuel-ersson-minnesota-wild-trying-with-bobby-brink-after-rfas-go-unqualified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/770156\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Senators working to sign Samuel Ersson, Minnesota Wild trying with Bobby Brink after RFAs go unqualified"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ottawa Senators<\/a> are working to sign newly acquired\u00a0goaltender Samuel Ersson<\/a> after electing not to issue him a qualifying offer, Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia reports.<\/p>\n

According to Michael Russo of The Athletic<\/a>, the Minnesota Wild<\/a> are in the same situation with forward Bobby Brink<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Senators acquired the rights to Ersson in a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> last week, sending a fifth-round pick back the other way. Garrioch adds that he would be surprised if a deal between the Senators and Ersson doesn\u2019t get done, though it would appear Ottawa wants his cap number below the $1.6 million qualifying offer he was due. Ersson was also eligible for arbitration had he been qualified. <\/p>\n

Ersson, 26, was acquired by the Maple Leafs, along with defenceman Emil Andrae<\/a> and a draft pick, from the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> in exchange for goalie Joseph Woll<\/a> and defenceman Simon Benoit<\/a> on June 16.<\/p>\n

If signed by Ottawa, Ersson figures to compete for the role of Linus Ullmark<\/a>\u2019s backup moving forward after Leevi Merilainen and James Reimer<\/a> split the role for the majority of last season. Reimer is a pending unrestricted free agent and his future is unclear at age 38. Merilainen was qualified as a restricted free agent. <\/p>\n

The 6-foot-3 Ersson went 14-11-5 last season as a member of the Flyers with a 3.12 goals-against average and an .860 save percentage.<\/p>\n

He is coming off a two-year, $2.9 million contract that carried a cap hit of $1.45 million.<\/p>\n

Can the Wild keep Brink?<\/p>\n

Brink was due a $1.5 million qualifying offer, but Russo reports the move to not qualify him was based on the potential $4 million salary he could have been awarded in arbitration.<\/p>\n

Russo adds that negotiations continue between the Wild and Brink\u2019s agent, Ben Hankinson, continue on a new deal but the open market awaits if a new deal is not reached before Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Minnesota is tight on cap space with $9.4 million available with four roster spots still to fill, meaning Brink could wind up being a cap casualty.<\/p>\n

Brink, 24, was only acquired by the Wild at the trade deadline from the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> in exchange for prospect David Jiricek<\/a>. He posted two goals and four points in 13 games with the Wild for a combined 15 goals and 30 points in 68 games on the season. He had one assist in four playoff games<\/p>\n

Brink, who was selected by the Flyers in the second round of the 2019 draft, has 38 goals and 98 points in 214 career games. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ottawa Senators are working to sign newly acquired\u00a0goaltender Samuel Ersson after electing not to issue him a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[16159,64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-770156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-apple-news","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}