Player Discussion Linus Ullmark (G)

[frightenedinmatenum2]

Could it be, that's James Reimer's music!

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

Have some faith guys, holy cow this fanbase is weakkneed. We will be alright. Chill out and believe the team can win without Ullmark.

Ottawa so desperate for a saviour and a hero they can’t see beyond their Iove affair with Ullmark. They started the season without him and were fine.

It may not be the end of the world after all here, but they're basically 7 years running of not having an in house tender actually capable of winning games, with most actively contributing to losing a lot of them by being as bad as they were. It's been the achilles heel of the team throughout the whole rebuild, so hard to blame anyone for the doubt, especially when 2 of the in house options are Forsberg and Sogaard that have basically lost all faith from fans atm. This is a team where basically all the goaltenders other than Ullmark haven't just not been very good, they've actively shot the team in the foot.

 

[PoutineSp00nZ]

Losing Ulmark is a huge blow, but this team has to prove that they can overcome some adversity before any of us can really believe in them, or themselves for that matter. This is as good a time as any.

If they can rally around whoever the f*** is in nets, and play at 500 till Ulmark comes back . .. could be a huge confidence boost for everyone.

The next stretch could potentially decide the season though. Its nice to have big games in January for a change.

 

[DackellDuck]

I hope they’ve already sat down with Ullmark and told him he can’t go to this Four Nations tournament.

 

[SpezDispenser]

Ffs

 

[thinkwild]

I hope they’ve already sat down with Ullmark and told him he can’t go to this Four Nations tournament.

I definitely share the sentiment, but of course i dont think we can do that. If he's injured hes not likely to play anyway. What if he just goes anyway, what are we going to do? All the players are taking a risk cause they want to do it. Just gotta cross our fingers and hope for the best i'd think.

 

[NyQuil]

Losing Ulmark is a huge blow, but this team has to prove that they can overcome some adversity before any of us can really believe in them, or themselves for that matter. This is as good a time as any.

If they can rally around whoever the f*** is in nets, and play at 500 till Ulmark comes back . .. could be a huge confidence boost for everyone.

The next stretch could potentially decide the season though. Its nice to have big games in January for a change.

We literally went out and got this guy for stretches of the season that we are in right now.

It’s beyond frustrating.

You can’t say “We didn’t make the playoffs because of our league worst goaltending” in one breath and then say “Well, the team should be able to win games facing adversity no matter who is in net” in the next.

We’ve tried that. Many times.

Anyway, just venting.

I guess it’s up to Travis Green now to make something of this.

 

[Ice-Tray]

We literally went out and got this guy for stretches of the season that we are in right now.

It’s beyond frustrating.

You can’t say “We didn’t make the playoffs because of our league worst goaltending” in one breath and then say “Well, the team should be able to win games facing adversity no matter who is in net” in the next.

We’ve tried that. Many times.

Anyway, just venting.

I guess it’s up to Travis Green now to make something of this.

It’s really up to the players now; to rally.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

There's also another problem on the horizon. If we do make the playoffs, we need a goalie that's capable of playing every second night for a few weeks (hopefully a month or two). If we need to put in a backup every second or third game of the playoffs, then we're in big trouble. We don't have a Ullmark/Swayman tandem here where you can toss in either one and be confident.

Whatever health issues he has, they really need to be fixed up asap.

 

[JD1]

Talk about downplaying Ullmark's contribution to the team lol.

He might not be outright stealing all the games, but we're not in a playoff spot without his very steady presence in net the last month. Don't see how we remain above 500 with Forsberg,Leevi and Soogard back there.

This is more of a

"Why can't we have nice things" situation

Has Ullmark won us some games? Sure. But I think sens fans have goaltending ptsd. Boston has had vezina calibre goaltending since Tim Thomas. Winnipeg for the entirety of Hellebuck's career. NYR has 2 vezinas. Tampa with Vas. Montreal has Price. The Bob has two. This is just in the past 15 years since the Thomas era. All those teams in the east except Winnipeg. Our competitors have great goaltending. It's a lot of the reason they make the playoffs and we don't.

We're so used to bad goaltending that when we get great goaltending the general fan base reaction is "We're only winning because of goaltending"

Great goaltending is a huge part of teams winning. Always has been.

We're too quick to discredit ourselves when we get on a roll.

 

[Xspyrit]

wow late to the news but seriously! We really need Ullmark and the stability he has provided

Welp.

The reality is that while Linus has been good, I am not in the group of fans that think he is stealing games. He has made stops that are stoppable. I think the overall team defence has allowed low chances, not many Grade A's and odd man rushes. Very Boston-like. So it will flatter any goalie.

Doesn't mean it isnt a huge loss , and a concerning trend for this season, but Leevi can make that low grad A chance look routine, as he did against Vancouver. Time to circle the wagons

I agree the team defense has looked leaps and bounds better than at any moment under DJ Smith, it started to look much better under Jacques Martin though.

That said, there's still games where we lack engagement and consistency and where we need Ullmark to stand tall. I don't remember which games exactly but he had to steal a few (San Jose+)

It may not be the end of the world after all here, but they're basically 7 years running of not having an in house tender actually capable of winning games, with most actively contributing to losing a lot of them by being as bad as they were. It's been the achilles heel of the team throughout the whole rebuild, so hard to blame anyone for the doubt, especially when 2 of the in house options are Forsberg and Sogaard that have basically lost all faith from fans atm. This is a team where basically all the goaltenders other than Ullmark haven't just not been very good, they've actively shot the team in the foot.

I understand the sentiment but I think the real problem has been "team defense". Of course there was no elite goalie to bail them out but our team defense was really really bad under DJ Smith, would have destroyed any goalie (and it did) except that Forsberg Vezina level season.

 

[Ice-Tray]

This is more of a

"Why can't we have nice things" situation

Has Ullmark won us some games? Sure. But I think sens fans have goaltending ptsd. Boston has had vezina calibre goaltending since Tim Thomas. Winnipeg for the entirety of Hellebuck's career. NYR has 2 vezinas. Tampa with Vas. Montreal has Price. The Bob has two. This is just in the past 15 years since the Thomas era. All those teams in the east except Winnipeg. Our competitors have great goaltending. It's a lot of the reason they make the playoffs and we don't.

We're so used to bad goaltending that when we get great goaltending the general fan base reaction is "We're only winning because of goaltending"

Great goaltending is a huge part of teams winning. Always has been.

We're too quick to discredit ourselves when we get on a roll.

You just can’t put a premium on a guy who makes all of the saves he’s supposed to make, along with some he shouldn’t.

I agree that the team has been playing really well defensively, making it so our goalies really only need to make the saves they should be making on a nightly basis to be competitive.

Playing with confidence is a key to sustained play, and having a goalie they can rely on is a key element to that confidence.

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

I understand the sentiment but I think the real problem has been "team defense". Of course there was no elite goalie to bail them out but our team defense was really really bad under DJ Smith, would have destroyed any goalie (and it did) except that Forsberg Vezina level season.

It's definitely a bit of both, it was a tough situation for any goalie, but almost none of the guys brought in played well at any point even under the circumstances. The guys they had/brought in were either inexperienced, career backups, damaged goods like Murray, or a guy like Korpisalo brought in because of an outlier UFA season. Forsberg had a solid year, Gus had spurts, and Talbot should have been better than he was but was injured a lot that year. Other than that, I don't think the guys they brought in were much worse than could be expected. Korpisalo is only 3 points higher on his save % atm as he was last year, with a much softer backup schedule, and posted that or worse plenty in Columbus while his tandem partners significantly outperformed him. Murray was out of the league for 2 years for the same injury issues Ottawa faced with him. The inexperienced guys like Daccord and Gus obviously just needed time. Hogberg was nothing special. Forsberg had the injuries and has never performed well since.

 

[SensFactor]

We gave Ullmark a long term contract to be our #1 goalie. We need him. A player's greatest ability is availability and im worried about Ullmark's long term durability. Hes already been out three times in this young season with various issues

Ullmark has only played 1 season close to 50 games. That is worrying.

 

[Xspyrit]

It's definitely a bit of both, it was a tough situation for any goalie, but almost none of the guys brought in played well at any point even under the circumstances. The guys they had/brought in were either inexperienced, career backups, damaged goods like Murray, or a guy like Korpisalo brought in because of an outlier UFA season. Forsberg had a solid year, Gus had spurts, and Talbot should have been better than he was but was injured a lot that year. Other than that, I don't think the guys they brought in were much worse than could be expected. Korpisalo is only 3 points higher on his save % atm as he was last year, with a much softer backup schedule, and posted that or worse plenty in Columbus while his tandem partners significantly outperformed him. Murray was out of the league for 2 years for the same injury issues Ottawa faced with him. The inexperienced guys like Daccord and Gus obviously just needed time. Hogberg was nothing special. Forsberg had the injuries and has never performed well since.

We've seen that in 2021-22 with Forsberg who was probably a Top-10 goalie (9th best GSAA/60) but ended up with a 22-17-4 record, just a bit over 0.500. So even with high end goaltending, that team was not really good, particularly in terms of team defense. All the other goalies had significantly worse stats, Forsberg was just standing on his head.

if we were good at pro scouting, we had Daccord and Gustavsson, 2 solutions in the organization already. Stupid that we let them both go

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

I think everybody should assume that he is a tandem goalie, until it is proven otherwise.

They need someone else who can play 30-40 games. In a perfect world, one of the RFA goalies would be ready for that by next year, and we could bridge them at similar money to what Forsberg makes now to keep the tandem at around 10M or so.

 

[Loach]

We've seen that in 2021-22 with Forsberg who was probably a Top-10 goalie (9th best GSAA/60) but ended up with a 22-17-4 record, just a bit over 0.500. So even with high end goaltending, that team was not really good, particularly in terms of team defense. All the other goalies had significantly worse stats, Forsberg was just standing on his head.

if we were good at pro scouting, we had Daccord and Gustavsson, 2 solutions in the organization already. Stupid that we let them both go

Habs and goalies, Habs and goalies. Dude....

 

[SlapJack]

We've seen that in 2021-22 with Forsberg who was probably a Top-10 goalie (9th best GSAA/60) but ended up with a 22-17-4 record, just a bit over 0.500. So even with high end goaltending, that team was not really good, particularly in terms of team defense. All the other goalies had significantly worse stats, Forsberg was just standing on his head.

if we were good at pro scouting, we had Daccord and Gustavsson, 2 solutions in the organization already. Stupid that we let them both go

One of Daccord or Gustavsson HAD to go no matter what, there was literally no choice. Talbot trade was idiotic though.

 

[senswon]

Scoobydoo-unmasking-ullmark-hasek.gif

 

[BonHoonLayneCornell]

We've seen that in 2021-22 with Forsberg who was probably a Top-10 goalie (9th best GSAA/60) but ended up with a 22-17-4 record, just a bit over 0.500. So even with high end goaltending, that team was not really good, particularly in terms of team defense. All the other goalies had significantly worse stats, Forsberg was just standing on his head.

if we were good at pro scouting, we had Daccord and Gustavsson, 2 solutions in the organization already. Stupid that we let them both go

Yup, the 1 outlier in Forsberg's season, 2 young guys that needed patience, 1 guy in Talbot that performed below expectations, and a host of others like Murray and Korpisalo that played to their relatively low ceiling, at least at that point for Murray with the injuries and when Korpisalo isn't having his 1 in 3 or 4 good season cycles.

 

[Cosmix]

I think everybody should assume that he is a tandem goalie, until it is proven otherwise.

They need someone else who can play 30-40 games. In a perfect world, one of the RFA goalies would be ready for that by next year, and we could bridge them at similar money to what Forsberg makes now to keep the tandem at around 10M or so.

An $8M tandem goaltender!

 

[Cosmix]

So are the Winnipeg and Minnesota games a write off?

The season might be a write-off if Ullmark cannot play. The rest of our goaltenders likely are not going to be able to play well enough (although I was impressed by Merrilainen but he is a rookie).

 

[Knave]

The start of the season up to Nov 18th was average to bad goaltending and we manage to stay afloat at 0.500. And a few of those games the other goalies stood on their heads and massively outplayed our goalies.

That being said for longterm success and making the playoffs this team needs Ullmark back ASAP and able to play every other game.

Personally out of the three goalies right now - I'd be putting in Merilainen as he looked the steadiest of the three. But maybe Green feels Winnipeg is tougher than Minnesota and you put Merilainen in against Minnesota.

 

[Cosmix]

wow late to the news but seriously! We really need Ullmark and the stability he has provided



I agree the team defense has looked leaps and bounds better than at any moment under DJ Smith, it started to look much better under Jacques Martin though.

That said, there's still games where we lack engagement and consistency and where we need Ullmark to stand tall. I don't remember which games exactly but he had to steal a few (San Jose+)



I understand the sentiment but I think the real problem has been "team defense". Of course there was no elite goalie to bail them out but our team defense was really really bad under DJ Smith, would have destroyed any goalie (and it did) except that Forsberg Vezina level season.

I agree that "team defence" is an issue. The Fs do not defend well in their own D zone; still too much puck-watching and not enough coverage of opponent players. Hopefully the coaching staff recognizes this and starts to force the Fs to play smarter D. Torts would!

Then there is our 6 defensemen who are not strong and physical enough at defending in the D zone.

Hopefully the team plays a solid game in all 3 zones with aggressive forechecking (2 Fs) in the O zone to increase O-Zone time and thus reduce D-Zone time and shots against.

 

[DylanSensFan]

We need to figure out who is our legitimate backup goalie moving forward. Therefore, this situation offers an opportunity to assess if Soogard will ever be it, or if Meriläinen will take the rein.