Linus Ullmark<\/a>\u2019s absence from the team, the team released an official statement condemning internet \u201ctrolls\u201d and \u201csick\u201d people spreading what it called \u201ccompletely fabricated and false stories.\u201d<\/p>\nA statement you rarely see in the NHL for unfounded rumours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And that was just the appetizer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The main course was the Senators enduring an 8-2 drubbing on Thursday to the best team in the NHL, the Colorado Avalanche.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every Colorado shot looked destined to hit twine, no matter its angle of launch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The game was a microcosm of the Senators\u2019 season, earning them the league-worst save percentage and a burgeoning disaster in the standings.<\/p>\n
When was the last time you saw a goaltender get pulled, and later return to the game because their replacement was so bad?<\/p>\n
It was Leevi Merilainen, then pulled for Mads Sogaard, then later replaced by Merilainen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was so bad that, unbelievably, it led to the Senators signing James Reimer to an AHL professional tryout midway through their game against Colorado. Reimer is a 37-year-old goalie with 525 career games under his belt who signed a PTO with the Leafs, of all teams, in the fall before being released and before Ottawa snagged him. He played with Buffalo last season.<\/p>\n
The Senators have been free-falling down the standings, high on the deserve-to-win-o-meter most nights but low, very low, on the save-o-meter every night.<\/p>\n
In the midst of the craziness, Ullmark\u2019s timeline for return is as unclear as ever. On Thursday in Denver, the Senators moved him off their roster to make room for the return of Lars Eller, who suffered a broken foot last month. However, when the former Vezina Trophy winner was playing, before his leave of absence on Dec. 28, he didn\u2019t look the part. To that point, he had been the worst goaltender in the league in terms of goals saved above expected.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Because Ullmark is signed for $8 million for each of the three seasons after this one, he\u2019s virtually untradeable. A potential buyout would be onerous for a cash-strapped Senators team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ullmark is not the first goalie to lose his Midas glove touch in Ottawa.<\/p>\n
Ottawa has become the city where netminders\u2019 save percentages nosedive into the sub-.900 range. There hasn\u2019t been one goaltender in Ottawa in the last decade who hasn\u2019t been caught in the vortex.<\/p>\n
First it was Matt Murray.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Talbot era is remembered by who he was traded for, with the Senators losing Filip Gustavsson in the process of acquiring Talbot in a short-term move.<\/p>\n
Finally, Joonas Korpisalo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was \u201cFour Goals Allowed\u201d Korpisalo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All the while, Joey Daccord and Gustavsson have gone on to become elite NHL goaltenders \u2014 traded away or let go despite immense promise. Gustavsson will play for Team Sweden at the Olympics. Ullmark will not.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There is still no explanation for why goaltenders barely survive in Ottawa but thrive elsewhere. All we know is that it’s a trend, not a blip.<\/p>\n
Maybe Ullmark returns to form whenever he\u2019s ready to come back, but that must seem like fool\u2019s gold if you\u2019re general manager Steve Staios.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Perhaps the newly signed Reimer can provide saves. Reimer\u2019s .897 save percentage last season would do wonders for Ottawa if he could replicate that in Senators red and black. If so, it would feel like the Senators had signed prime Dominik Hasek.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the moniker of \u201cSteady Steve\u201d Staios will be put to the test. Sure, Reimer could work, but Laurent Brossoit, with a better track record and pedigree, was just traded to San Jose. Ottawa seems to have chosen the lower-cost option.<\/p>\n
Arguably, the Sens\u2019 conundrum began with Staios\u2019 decision in the off-season not to bring in a veteran goaltender to back up Ullmark, who had never played more than 49 games in a season in his injury-prone career. Instead, the team was relying on Merilainen, who had just 14 games of NHL experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Staios wears a lot of this. As of today, he quite simply chose the wrong netminder to believe in due to his underperformance on the ice this season. It could be an organizational disaster of a decision if Ullmark doesn\u2019t return to elite status, although it is still possible Ullmark returns to glory. No Vezina winner forgets how to be a good goaltender overnight, but goalies are prone to dramatic fall-offs in play.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The goaltending mess surely looks like it will impede Ottawa\u2019s progress toward being a contender in the window with Brady Tkachuk<\/a> under contract until 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\nSenators fans are used to saying, \u201cWhat could have been?\u201d when it comes to their past goalies; those words are now starting to blend into their sentiments about the Tkachuk era.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite all the pressure on management, the Senators are just five points out of a playoff spot, but are second-last in the conference with so many teams they must surpass.<\/p>\n
This is looking like it might be a lost season for the Senators. And, oh yeah, they don’t have their first-round draft pick for this spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll contend when we\u2019re ready to contend,\u201d said Staios in the days before Thursday’s news, not much consolation to fans who imagined their team making runs this year and for years to come.<\/p>\n
The 8-2 loss needs to be the turning point of the 2025-26 Senators. With even league-average goaltending, they would have allowed 25 fewer goals this season. They\u2019d be a playoff team even with just a modicum of saves.<\/p>\n
And, sure, we can point to how Tkachuk has underperformed, how the Senators’ depth defencemen have underwhelmed and to the fact that they\u2019ve had a porous penalty kill. All valid points. But they would be moot if the Senators just got\u2026 well, you know what they need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 The game of hockey should just be called \u201cgoalie.\u201d\u00a0 Most nights, the team that ices the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-401022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}