The Ottawa Senators are well acquainted with goaltending issues. After Craig Anderson left in 2019-20, the team didn’t have a reliable starting goalie until they acquired Linus Ullmark last offseason. While a lot of that can also be blamed on the defence, there’s no question that goaltending wasn’t helping matters.
Thankfully, the arrival of Ullmark put many of those concerns to rest. In his first season in Ottawa, the former Vezina Trophy winner led the team to 25 wins and posted a .910 save percentage (SV%), helping the Senators clinch their first playoff berth since 2017. Even though he struggled early and missed a significant chunk of time with a back injury, he finally became the reliable presence in net the team needed to make a run at the Stanley Cup.
That run, however, doesn’t look like it’ll happen this year. After four games, the Senators are down 3-1 against the rival Toronto Maple Leafs, narrowly avoiding a sweep in Game 4 with a 4-3 overtime win. While no one honestly believed that this was Ottawa’s chance to claim their first championship, fans have been disheartened with the results, which have left them looking for reasons why their team is struggling against an opponent they dominated in the regular season. One of those targets was Ullmark, who has a .848 SV% over four games and hasn’t been the rock the Senators needed to win. However, despite his subpar stats, many of the goals scored on him have been far from his fault.
Game 1’s Blowout Was a Team Failure
The series got off to a rough start for the Senators with a 6-2 blowout loss. Few players looked great on the ice against the more experienced Maple Leafs, but Ullmark looked especially vulnerable, stopping just 18 shots. But, on most of those plays, Ullmark was not the primary player at fault, and while it would have been nice for him to steal one or two of those shots, he was not put in a position to succeed by his team.
The first two goals the Maple Leafs scored are perfect examples of the Senators failing their defensive assignments. On the first goal, Dylan Cozens and Drake Batherson were caught behind the play, leaving Scott Laughton to make an easy pass to a wide-open Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who put the puck right under Ullmark’s glove. The only challenge came from Thomas Chabot, who missed the poke check and gave Laughton even more room to pass. David Perron was in a good position to prevent a rebound, but Nick Jensen tried to block the shot right in front of his goalie, likely obscuring his vision of the puck and preventing a save.
The second goal is very similar to the first. Auston Matthews intercepted a pass, then caught Mitch Marner with a long stretch pass, who blew by Chabot and Jensen and got a breakaway. That’s not a player you want to give room to make a move, and few goalies would have made that save in Ullmark’s position.
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On the third goal, the Senators began to sink into penalty trouble. Just nine seconds after Tim Stutzle took a boarding penalty, the Senators lost a faceoff, leading to John Tavares tipping a shot from William Nylander on net. Ullmark made the initial save, but Tavares got around Jensen and Matthew Highmore to knock in his own rebound. The Senators allowed two more power-play goals before the buzzer sounded, one of which was scored on a 5-on-3, which is a nightmare scenario for any goalie, but especially one who hasn’t had much defence all night.
Too many penalties and not enough faceoff wins gave the Maple Leafs a significant advantage for nearly the whole 60 minutes of Game 1, causing the Senators to make desperate plays to help out their struggling goalie. Unfortunately, that didn’t make things better. On a routine shot from Morgan Rielly, Highmore tried to get in front of it to block, but he wasn’t quick enough, and it deflected off his arm, giving it just enough height to tumble over Ullmark’s glove. To add insult to injury, a bad scramble gave Matthew Knies a juicy rebound he couldn’t miss and made the game 6-2. While there was one goal that Ullmark should have had, the other five were out of his control, meaning that even if he was on top of his game, the Senators still likely would have lost.
Senators Improved in Game 2, But Deflections Sink Ullmark
Ottawa was much more cohesive and disciplined in Game 2, but they still did Ullmark no favours. Of the three goals he allowed, only one could be blamed on the Senators’ goalie, that being the overtime winner from Max Domi to win 3-2. However, both Cozens and Batherson missed their attempted interceptions. Batherson stuck with him, but couldn’t get enough in front of Domi to prevent him from shooting. In fact, it all started with Batherson’s errant pass that gave the Maple Leafs possession, leading to the goal. It was the worst time to have a whole-team breakdown, as it gave Toronto the 2-0 series lead.
The first two goals were a different story. The Senators were determined not to take so many penalties this time around, and they achieved that goal with flying colours, with just two minor calls. Defensively, though, they were disorganized, leading to two deflected goals that could have easily been prevented. The first went off Rielly’s skate, which deflected into the wide open net after he snuck around Batherson. Ullmark reached over desperately with his stick, but was just a hair too slow, as he was dealing with Pontus Holmberg and Jensen on the left side of his crease.
As previously mentioned, penalties were a far lesser concern in Game 2, but not nonexistent. Roughly 15 seconds after Artem Zub was called for tripping Holmberg, the Senators were scrambling under the Maple Leafs’ persistent attack. Tavares fired a shot from the left corner, and Ullmark made the initial save, but it bounced off Jensen’s chest, who was standing right beside his goalie, and into the back of the net. That’s not a mistake that can happen in the playoffs.
Once again, Ullmark had just one goal where he probably could have made the save. However, the Senators could have won this game had they played more intelligently and not succumbed to panic. The two teams were neck and neck for nearly the whole matchup, and only Ottawa’s mistakes gave Toronto the edge they needed to take Game 2. Ullmark was, yet again, not the primary problem.
Game 3’s Strong Start Bungled By Own Goal
Compared to Games 1 and 2, Game 3 was probably Ullmark’s worst performance, but it all started with a play that was entirely out of his control. The Senators were once again on the penalty kill, but looked much better than they had previously in the series. They’d already successfully killed off a penalty, survived two four-on-fours, and gone up 1-0 over the Maple Leafs by the midpoint of the second period. Yet all it took was a poor placement from Shane Pinto for an errant shot to bounce off his skate and dribble into the back of the net. Ullmark was left scrambling to recover the slowly drifting puck, but having Jake Sanderson lying at his feet didn’t help his mobility.
Ullmark turned away a few more shots after that, but the team was a little rattled. In the third period, with the game tied 1-1, Marner caught a pass from Rielly behind the net. Ullmark was laser-focused on Marner in case he tried a wrap-around, yet wasn’t watching the puck, which Marner had already passed out to Auston Matthews, who was right in front of the net. Sanderson was also caught flat-footed by the deceptive move, forcing Zub to dive to try and help out the oblivious goalie. It was a skillful play, but Ullmark should have been more ready for the shot.
The game winner was also partly on Ullmark. It was a long shot from defenceman Simon Benoit, and generally, he should have those. But it’s a miracle that the puck made it through all those bodies in front of the net. Ullmark was frank with the media after the game. “I didn’t see anything,” he said. “Sometimes it’s a bad bounce, but give (Benoit) credit, he found a way to get it all the way.” A big part of the team’s failure to clear the crease was yet another faceoff loss from the Senators. The team won just 37% of their draws that game, and the game winner was a direct consequence of that. So, while you could blame Ullmark for the Game 3 loss, it’s once again unfair to lay it entirely at his feet. The team didn’t help him, even when they tried.
Senators Ready for Game 5
Everything finally clicked into place in Game 4. Ullmark turned away 31 of 34 shots, giving him a .912 SV% and, for the first time in the series, the Senators didn’t give up any power-play goals. There were still moments where Ullmark was left out to dry, namely on the Knies breakaway goal to tie the game at two, and he was heavily screened on Tavares’ tip-in to get the Maple Leafs on the board. But, for the most part, the team worked better together, resulting in a win.
Throughout this series, Ullmark has only allowed a couple of bad goals, while the majority of the rest were bad plays from the rest of his team that put him in a bad place to make a save. Head coach Travis Green summed it up well after Game 4’s win, saying, “Sometimes it’s one or two plays that really make the difference.” Ottawa went toe-to-toe with the Maple Leafs, leading to three overtime games, but was undone by inexperience.
Sure, Ullmark didn’t steal the show with an impossible save, and often, teams need a hot goalie to make a deep playoff run. But when the Senators continually failed to block shots, create unfortunate deflections, and put their team down a man with a penalty, their goalie was unable to play at his best. When that wasn’t the case, Ottawa thrived. If they can keep that up for their next game, they should be just fine.
