{"id":675140,"date":"2026-09-30T13:09:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/675140\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T13:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T13:09:13","slug":"senators-continue-to-show-an-unwillingness-to-develop-goalies-the-hockey-writers-ottawa-senators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/675140\/","title":{"rendered":"Senators Continue to Show an Unwillingness to Develop Goalies – The Hockey Writers – Ottawa Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"

Final cuts are never easy, and every season, talented players end up on the waiver wire, free for the taking by any team that first puts in a claim. Sometimes it works out; in 2021, the Ottawa Senators claimed goalie Anton Forsberg<\/a> off waivers from the Columbus Blue Jackets, who went on to post a .917 save percentage (SV%) and a 22-17-4 record over 46 games that season. Other times, it hardly moves the needle, like when the Senators lost Lassi Thomson to the Anaheim Ducks <\/a>on waivers, then reclaimed him when they tried to send him to the minors a week later. <\/p>\n

But sometimes, a player too good for waivers lands on the dreaded list where a claim is almost guaranteed. That was the case for Leevi Merilainen<\/a>, who the Vancouver Canucks picked up after the Senators decided Samuel Ersson would back up Linus Ullmark this season. Although Ersson earned the job over his younger counterpart, losing Merilainen for nothing after he emerged as the team\u2019s best goaltending prospect<\/a> is a huge blow for the organization\u2019s development model that doesn\u2019t exactly have a lot of wins. <\/p>\n

Merilainen Needed More Time<\/p>\n

Goalies develop very differently than skaters. While forwards and defencemen can make an immediate impact as teenagers, goalies are often 25 years old before taking over the top job on a team. Merilainen looked like he was on that path. He had a great start to his NHL career with a 34-save overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> on Apr. 4, 2023, and in 2024-25, he recorded three shutouts over 12 appearances, giving him a .925 SV% and a 1.99 goals-against average, the best average of any Senators\u2019 netminder that season by far. <\/p>\n

However, last season was a significant departure from those performances and came to be defined by Jake Sanderson\u2019s frustrated response<\/a> after a 13-save performance on Jan. 17, 2026. \u201cI think Leevi made some good saves,\u201d he said after the 6-5 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens, \u201cBut I think, at the end of the day, you\u2019ve got to make more than 10 saves to win a game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LeeviFormer Ottawa Senators goalie Leevi Merilainen (Marc DesRosiers-IMAGN Images)<\/p>\n

That ended up being the last time Merilainen started for the Senators. After the loss, he was reassigned to the American Hockey League (AHL), where he finished the season. With the Belleville Senators, he put up a very solid .909 SV% and a 2.77 GAA over 19 games and started 16 of the team\u2019s 24 games between Jan. 20 and Mar. 30, nine of which were above a .930 SV%. He was recalled to Ottawa after Belleville\u2019s season ended in late April, but he didn\u2019t make another on-ice appearance.<\/p>\n

Merilainen clearly had talent. No other Belleville goalie last season posted above an .895 SV% or under a 3.20 GAA, and only Merilainen had more than one shutout. It\u2019s why Ottawa gave him a one-way NHL contract ahead of the 2025-26 season and expected him to be Ullmark\u2019s backup<\/a>, and it\u2019s why they re-signed him to another one-year, one-way deal at the end of last season despite his struggles. At just 24 years old, he was just starting to get comfortable with his role in the NHL. <\/p>\n

Johansson Doesn\u2019t Fix Goalie Problem<\/p>\n

Hours after Merilainen was claimed, the Senators announced they had acquired Jonas Johansson from the Tampa Bay Lightning for future considerations. It was a purely reactionary move; the Senators needed someone to fill out Belleville\u2019s crease alongside Kevin Reidler and Jackson Parsons. Johansson didn\u2019t have to go through waivers to go down to the AHL, making the 31-year-old the perfect stopgap.<\/p>\n

Barring injuries, Johansson isn\u2019t likely to see any time with the Senators this season, which means he\u2019ll spend this season battling Reidler and Parsons for minutes in the AHL. There\u2019s an argument that Merilainen also wouldn\u2019t have seen many NHL minutes this season after Ersson signed his two-year deal, but even with other backups, the young Finn has always been the first call-up when things needed a boost. <\/p>\n

Johansson doesn\u2019t offer any potential for a boost; after 105 career NHL games, the 31-year-old has never finished a season with a save percentage above .895 except his three-game stint with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022-23, where he had a .932 SV%. That nearly single-handedly earned him a two-year deal with the Lightning, where he was a below-average goalie on an above-average team. <\/p>\n

But Johansson\u2019s AHL numbers are much more promising, which will prevent Reidler or Parsons from earning significant minutes this season. That doesn\u2019t bode well for their development, since goalies need to play to get better. Now Belleville is looking at a situation where either one goalie barely plays, or all three play minimally. It\u2019s not ideal for anyone. <\/p>\n

The Senators Refuse to Develop Goalies<\/p>\n

With Merilainen gone, Parsons and Reidler are the only signed goalies in the Senators\u2019 system under 23 years old, and the messaging from the team is that if you don\u2019t perform, you won\u2019t get chances. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s part of the league,\u201d said head coach Travis Green after Vancouver\u2019s claim. \u201cYou\u2019ve got players that you sometimes put on waivers. You want a goalie that can play well. There is nothing else you can see or want to see. You want a goalie that can play well.\u201d (from \u201cAfter losing Merilainen on waivers, Senators acquire Jonas Johansson from Tampa Bay Lightning,\u201d Ottawa Citizen \u2013 25\/09\/2026). <\/p>\n

That kind of messaging is exactly why the Senators haven\u2019t developed a goalie since Ray Emery. Young goalies need patience and time to develop, and regardless of who\u2019s in charge, Ottawa\u2019s management has continuously given up young, promising goalies in favour of consistent veterans. Filip Gustavsson, Joey Daccord, Robin Lehner, and Ben Bishop were all shipped out in one way or another, and their spots were given to older goalies who didn\u2019t perform nearly as well. Now Merilainen is set to join that list<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Some may argue that Merilainen had enough chances to prove himself worthy, but look at what the Senators did after one weak season. Ersson, who was one of the worst goalies in the NHL last season, was given a two-year, $4.4 million deal<\/a>, essentially confirming that he would be the backup ahead of Merilainen. The team had lost faith in their young goalie, and now the Canucks will get to benefit from the Senators\u2019 unwillingness to work with their goalie prospects longer than four years. For the sake of the team\u2019s next wave of goalies, let\u2019s hope Ottawa changes its tune soon. <\/p>\n

Free Newsletter<\/p>\n

\n Get Ottawa Senators coverage delivered to your inbox <\/p>\n

In-depth analysis, breaking news, and insider takes – free.<\/p>\n


\n Subscribe Free \u2192
\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Final cuts are never easy, and every season, talented players end up on the waiver wire, free for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[5,8380,539,4,72,25,5157,5360,73],"class_list":["post-675140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa-senators","tag-hockey","tag-leevi-merilainen","tag-linus-ullmark","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-ottawasenators","tag-samuel-ersson","tag-senators"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117360156237171705","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}