The Ottawa Senators Don’t Need to Make Any Drastic Moves, but Will Search for a Reliable Backup

The Ottawa Senators may not need to make any drastic moves after their first-round exit

Julian MacKenzie of The Athletic: Ottawa Senators GM Steve Staios may not feel that he needs to do anything drastic to improve the team, except if Brady Tkachuk changes his mind about the team.

It’s always nice to have more scoring, which isn’t easy to find, but, yes, they struggled to score in their four playoff games, but they were 8th in the league during the regular season.

Staios did say that he should have supported his goaltenders this season. Leevi Merilainen struggled and was sent to the AHL and they signed 38-year-old James Reimer as a UFA, who did pretty well at 7-4-2 with a 2.42 GAA and .886 save percentage. Linus Ullmark played well down the stretch and in the playoffs after he left the game for mental health reasons earlier in the season. Staios will keep his goaltending options open and maybe find someone to play in the AHL and NHL.

Upgrading their blue line could be an option as well. They have pending free agents in Nick Jensen, Dennis Gilbert and Lassi Thomson. Carter Yakemchuk will get a bigger shot next year.

The 38-year-old Claude Giroux isn’t sure about his playing future just yet, saying that he needs a bit of time to decide.

The Ottawa Senators will fix their goaltending issue

Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Citizen: Ottawa Senators GM Steve Staios said he should have done a better job in finding a reliable back up goaltender, and will do a better job for next season.

Starter Linus Ullmark to a 35-day leave for mental health reasons. They went through five goaltenders this season. They signed James Reimer in mid-January, and things were settled after that. Staios:

“His numbers were better than any of the alternative goaltenders that we were looking at. I didn’t do a good enough job of supporting Linus and that position and probably didn’t put Leevi in the best position to have success.

“We had to adjust and have James Reimer come in. He had a very positive impact on our group, both on and off the ice.”

Ullmark has never played more than 49 games in a season, so they need a reliable backup. With teams being able to carry three goaltenders next season, they could find a reliable backup, but also re-sign Reimer to be a third goalie. Mads Sogaard is also a UFA but is not expected to be brought back. Leevi Merilainen is still learning and developing. Staios:

“We’ll take a look at all options, and I’ll look at the process again, the way we had gone through it as a group, and we looked at it and why we made the decision that we did. I’m going to challenge that and look at it again and see what options may be there for us.”