Senators place Leevi Merilainen on waivers

It feels like a tale of two goalies for Merilainen over the last two seasons. In 2024-25, Merilainen looked like the goalie of the future for Ottawa, and his ability wasn’t because of luck; Merilainen was so technically and fundamentally sound that his positioning made things easy. He saw the game forming in front of him, read the play extremely well, gave up minimal rebounds, and was always controlled in his movements. But watching the game Wednesday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs and last season, it’s like he is a completely different goalie. He is scrambly, not reading the play or watching it develop, not tracking pucks well, and late in his movements.

Senators choose the right time to waive Merilainen

If there was any time to put him on waivers, though, it’d be right now. With more than 30 players being put on waivers today (and multiple goalies), you have to assume the Senators are hoping he slips through unclaimed. It also might help that he had a rough showing against the Maple Leafs, allowing six goals against. It would be unfair to hang the loss completely on Merilainen last night, as the defence was quite bad, but he didn’t make any game-saving saves either.

His performance puts management in a tough position because they either wait and see if his play improves at the NHL level or you send him down and bet that he gets through. With that said, Merilainen now finds himself on waivers and if there is an organization around the league that doesn’t have good goaltending depth, he’d be a really good player to bet on. His style of play is extremely mouldable and with the right coaching he can find himself back in his previous form.

The signing of Samuel Ersson in the offseason also made Merilainen’s situation that much harder as he would now have to show that he’s the better goalie to keep a roster spot. Ersson played extremely well in his start against the Montreal Canadiens earlier this pre-season and that made the climb back to a consistent NHL spot almost unattainable.

One of general manager Steve Staios’ few mistakes was not re-signing Anton Forsberg and solely relying on Merilainen as backup last season. That decision had the Senators fighting an uphill battle in the standings as they couldn’t guarantee a save between him and Linus Ullmark. Now that there is a veteran backup with Ersson, the Senators can role the dice a bit with Merilainen on waivers.

Outside of Merilainen though, the options for a capable NHL call-up aren’t very clear with goalies Jackson Parsons and Kevin Reidler both 21 years old and inexperienced. The Senators brought in Vadim Zherenko for a PTO opportunity who may be signed for AHL insurance. The likelihood of Merilainen being claimed is minimal and the Senators felt it was a risk worth taking, but it would be a tough scenario to see yet another goalie leave the organization for them to flourish somewhere else.