No team is under more pressure over the next two weeks than the Ottawa Senators.

A team this talented should not be kept out of the playoffs. And yet, with nine games to go in the regular season, Ottawa’s playoff outlook sits where it has just about all season – 50 per cent, dancing on the razor’s edge.

It shouldn’t be this close; certainly not for a team ranked 11th in goal differential (+18) on the season, and certainly not for a team with a top-10 scoring offence. But the goaltending woes that have ailed this franchise for large stretches of the past two decades have roared back at the worst possible time, and the poor reliability at the position has prevented Ottawa from pushing their way up the standings.

It starts with the big bet on Linus Ullmark a season ago; the Senators committed $33 million to the Swedish netminder in October of 2024. Fast forward one year, and Ullmark’s game has seemingly disintegrated. His underperformance may have a lot to do with his intra-season leave of absence – Ullmark courageously came out and acknowledged he’d been dealing with mental health issues in December, and to the team’s credit, they have supported him along the way.

But challenged play and intermittent availability, including a curious absence in a crucial game against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday for rest (Ottawa went on to lose in regulation), has put the Senators goaltending depth chart in a bind.

Backup Leevi Merilainen was so poor in 20 games he was sent down to AHL Belleville, placing the keys of the No. 2 role in the hands of well-travelled 38-year-old James Reimer.

The trio’s play has been, in one word, dreadful. If we look at every goalie’s performance this year relative to the shot profile they have faced (goals saved versus expected), the Ottawa goalies come in dead last – even behind the Vegas Golden Knights, whose goaltending has been so bad it culminated in a firing of the team’s head coach this weekend:

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It’s true that Merilainen sank much of Ottawa’s overall numbers, but backups and developing prospects at this position are expectedly volatile – these bets fail to pan out all the time.

The problem is more so with Ullmark. If you are paying a goaltender north of $8 million (committing about nine per cent of the total salary cap in the process), you need reliability and availability at the position.

Reliability hasn’t been there. Ullmark has been indiscernible from a replacement-level goalie this year (+0.8 goals saved vs expected; 88.8 per cent stop rate), comparable to that of journeymen like Edmonton’s Connor Ingram, Columbus’ Elvis Merzlikins, and Detroit’s Cam Talbot.

Year over year, it’s a meaningful step backwards:

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Ullmark’s availability has also been challenged several times this season now, and it seems likely he’ll finish the season with fewer than 50 games played. It goes without saying this was not what the Senators front office had in mind a year ago.

But redemption is always around the corner, and this besieged goaltending group has a chance to erase a disaster of a season with just two weeks of quality play. Ottawa’s finish to the season includes a five-game homestand, with four of their remaining nine games coming against lottery-bound teams (Florida twice; New Jersey; Toronto).

That presents the Senators goalies with a golden chance to rewrite this team’s story and push into the postseason.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey