Player Discussion Linus Ullmark (G)

[Gil Gunderson]

I said before this started, for the Leafs to win, Stolarz has to outplay Ullmark. He did last night. They still need to win 3 more games

Shouldn’t be a tough task if that’s the criteria.

 

[Puikiou]

1. Highmore shot into the sun. He's unfit for the ECHL, let alone the Stanley Cup playoffs. Enough is enough.

2. Giroux demoted to a Michal Handzus type role, as faceoffs are just about the only thing he's good at these days.

3. Roll 3 lines fairly evenly, sprinkle in the 4th line.

4. One more start in game 2, but if Ullmark still can't crack a .900 sv% (a feat he has never accomplished in a POs run in North America), Leevi should start game 3.

Tkachuk - Stützle - Zetterlund (18 mins)
Perron - Cozens - Batherson (17 mins)
Greig - Pinto - Amadio (17 mins)
Cousins - Giroux - Reinhardt (8 mins)
Extra: Gaudette

Sanderson - Zub
Chabot - Jensen
Kleven - Matinpalo
Extra: Gilbert

Merilainen/Ullmark
Merilainen/Ullmark​

 

[Gil Gunderson]

All of the goals were explainable. Lousy team defense and great finishing by the Leafs.

But Ullmark didn’t do the team any favours. And Stolarz made several high danger saves.

He starts every game regardless; forget the Levi/Anton talk. But he needs to assert himself.

Why?

 

[DylanSensFan]

The sens had just as many high danger chances. All of the leafs ones went in. Flip the goalies and its an opposite result.

No our team did not. Go back and watch the game. We gifted Toronto the slot on multiple chances that led to goals. On the other hand Ottawa played a perimeter game for most of the night. We got boxed out by their D for the majority of our chances. If we had those clean, clear slot chances like TML, we may have won that game. If we had half as many PP as they did, same thing.

Ullmark wasn't good. I am not sugarcoating his performance. I expect more from him. But we have this guy signed for five more years after this season and he needs more playoff experience. Pulling him doesn't help him or our team long term. It doesn't help his confidence to say, yeah thanks for the regular season, but f*** you it's the playoffs. We don't have a goalie on this team, including Meri who would have a chance last night. It ain't like Stolarz was amazing for multiple seasons before this. He's finally found his game. We need Ullmark to find his playoff game.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

No our team did not. Go back and watch the game. We gifted Toronto the slot on multiple chances that led to goals. On the other hand Ottawa played a perimeter game for most of the night. We got boxed out by their D for the majority of our chances. If we had those clean, clear slot chances like TML, we may have won that game. If we had half as many PP as they did, same thing.

Ullmark wasn't good. I am not sugarcoating his performance. I expect more from him. But we have this guy signed for five more years after this season and he needs more playoff experience. Pulling him doesn't help him or our team long term. It doesn't help his confidence to say, yeah thanks for the regular season, but f*** you it's the playoffs. We don't have a goalie on this team, including Meri who would have a chance last night. It ain't like Stolarz was amazing for multiple seasons before this. He's finally found his game. We need Ullmark to find his playoff game.

If he lays another egg tomorrow I don’t understand why we keep him in. Let him add to his experience another time. At this point of his career he’s played 11 playoff games and his numbers have been god awful relative to his regular season numbers. Same case in his AHL career too.

At least Merilainen would be an unknown rather than a sure dud.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

No our team did not. Go back and watch the game. We gifted Toronto the slot on multiple chances that led to goals. On the other hand Ottawa played a perimeter game for most of the night. We got boxed out by their D for the majority of our chances. If we had those clean, clear slot chances like TML, we may have won that game. If we had half as many PP as they did, same thing.

Ullmark wasn't good. I am not sugarcoating his performance. I expect more from him. But we have this guy signed for five more years after this season and he needs more playoff experience. Pulling him doesn't help him or our team long term. It doesn't help his confidence to say, yeah thanks for the regular season, but f*** you it's the playoffs. We don't have a goalie on this team, including Meri who would have a chance last night. It ain't like Stolarz was amazing for multiple seasons before this. He's finally found his game. We need Ullmark to find his playoff game.

....so you're willing to piss away a playoff series to get Ullmark more experience?

Oof.

 

[DylanSensFan]

....so you're willing to piss away a playoff series to get Ullmark more experience?

Oof.

No, but unless he craps the bed tomorrow you don't just put Meri in and expect we are going to win this series. Ottawa needs to play better on special teams and we need to stay out of the box. But we also need to rely on what got us here.

 

[DylanSensFan]

If he lays another egg tomorrow I don’t understand why we keep him in. Let him add to his experience another time. At this point of his career he’s played 11 playoff games and his numbers have been god awful relative to his regular season numbers. Same case in his AHL career too.

At least Merilainen would be an unknown rather than a sure dud.

Merilainen has crapped the bed on a few games playing for Ottawa this season. It's not as though he was perfect. He had one five goals agains game and another that was like four goals against. He could play out of his mind good, but then so could Ullmark. I would bet money that Green would put Forsberg in before Merlainen though, so we're not going to get what you all hope for.

I am also pretty certain that Ullmark was injure for a few of those series he played.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Merilainen has crapped the bed on a few games playing for Ottawa this season. It's not as though he was perfect. He had one five goals agains game and another that was like four goals against. He could play out of his mind good, but then so could Ullmark. I would bet money that Green would put Forsberg in before Merlainen though, so we're not going to get what you all hope for.

I am also pretty certain that Ullmark was injure for a few of those series he played.

Still haven’t seen him do that yet in a playoff game. We will see, but I think the sample size is there over the years to show that there’s something not there with him once the postseason starts. Even look at his AHL playoff numbers compared to the regular season.

We’ve seen rookie goalies come in for relief and surprise before in the playoffs.

 

[inthewings]

Come on now. The team is not going to bench their 8M starter, who played well in the regular season, to start a rookie, because he's had 10 poor playoff starts scattered over a 4-year stretch.

 

[Tuna99]

Linus interviews like he just read a philosophy textbook and he’s trying to explain it to a 7 year old.

Don’t mind weird goalies, but the weird ones gotta win

 

[Evilhomer]

Still haven’t seen him do that yet in a playoff game. We will see, but I think the sample size is there over the years to show that there’s something not there with him once the postseason starts. Even look at his AHL playoff numbers compared to the regular season.

We’ve seen rookie goalies come in for relief and surprise before in the playoffs.

I wonder what happens to him in playoff games. Maybe it's a confidence issue.

 

[Tuna99]

I wonder what happens to him in playoff games. Maybe it's a confidence issue.

He's an angles goalie, if his angles are slightly off he has no game. If his angles are on, you can't score on him.
He doesn't seem as Athletic as he did in Dec when he was winning. Couple of times in game #1 I thought he could of moved towards pucks and he just didn't. Not sure if he was just not feeling it or he's injured, but he doesn't look like he's moving that well and he looked deep to me all night long

 

[DylanSensFan]

Still haven’t seen him do that yet in a playoff game. We will see, but I think the sample size is there over the years to show that there’s something not there with him once the postseason starts. Even look at his AHL playoff numbers compared to the regular season.

We’ve seen rookie goalies come in for relief and surprise before in the playoffs.

He admitted that he was nervous for this game. My thought process is that it is nerves for him. He needs experience. Given what he's paid and his regular season performance, I am willing to provide him some leash. We need him for more than just these playoffs. He's our goalie moving forward. He's good enough, he just needs to get out of his head.

Have a look at Keumper and other goalies numbers in these first games of the post season and you'll see that a lot of goalies suck and are sub .900 to begin the playoffs. Before 2023-2025 Bobrovsky had an .841 SV% in 2021. Bob is another goalie with a Vezina x 2 and didn't really perform in the playoffs, until he did. I understand that people really want to oust the leafs and have a long run in these playoffs, but it shouldn't be at the cost of our long term team dynamic.

 

[DylanSensFan]

I wonder what happens to him in playoff games. Maybe it's a confidence issue.

Therefore, pulling him and putting in a rookie is not a good idea from my perspective. We need to give him a chance to succeed. This team as it is, currently lives and dies through his goaltending. Ullmark got us to the show. Ullmark had some nice support from our other goalies, but ultimately he got us here.

 

[frightenedinmatenum2]

If you're going to put in Merilainen, you do it for game 3 where you have last change.

Ultimately, Ullmark is our starting goalie, and he has stolen enough games that pulling him not would be premature. If we can't play our 8M goalie in the playoffs, we have big problems.

Next year might be different, because if Merilainen builds on what he did this year, I could see the dynamic being much closer to the one Ullmark had with Swayman. Where Ullmark is the #1, but it's a 1A/1B scenario with both splitting the season. In that scenario, it's less controversial to switch goalies throughout the series.

 

[Agent Zub]

i don't blame ullmark for game 1. not really any weak goals. i mean the OEL one? straight up uncontested shot from the middle and OEL is a good shooter, two twenty goal seasons to his name.

rebounds, deflections, or wide open shots from great shooters.

can't come to any conclusion from that.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

i don't blame ullmark for game 1. not really any weak goals. i mean the OEL one? straight up uncontested shot from the middle and OEL is a good shooter, two twenty goal seasons to his name.

rebounds, deflections, or wide open shots from great shooters.

can't come to any conclusion from that.

You’re going to have to make some saves “you’re not supposed to” to win in the playoffs. Stolarz did.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

i don't blame ullmark for game 1. not really any weak goals. i mean the OEL one? straight up uncontested shot from the middle and OEL is a good shooter, two twenty goal seasons to his name.

rebounds, deflections, or wide open shots from great shooters.

can't come to any conclusion from that.

and there's the issue with Ullmark in the playoffs. you dont win by only making the saves you're supposed to

 

[Agent Zub]

You’re going to have to make some saves “you’re not supposed to” to win in the playoffs. Stolarz did.

sure and some shots you can play perfectly and they can still go in.

like the weakest goal for me was probably the Marner one, and what was that? An uncontested breakaway to a 100 point player.

 

[Micklebot]

sure and some shots you can play perfectly and they can still go in.

like the weakest goal for me was probably the Marner one, and what was that? An uncontested breakaway to a 100 point player.

I said it in another thread, but in a vacuum, he didn't let in a bad goal. The problem isn't that he can't let in any of those goals, it's that he can't let all 6 of them in. He needed to come up with a save, ideal on the OEL chance imo, as that gave the leafs life.

 

[BigRig4]

You’re going to have to make some saves “you’re not supposed to” to win in the playoffs. Stolarz did.

Especially if you make top 10 goalie money.

 

[Hale The Villain]

Not sure why some people seem to think that every high danger scoring chance we face should be considered an automatic goal against and the goalie can't be expected to make a save in that situation.

Ullmark didn't make a key save all night. Pretty much every significant scoring chance ended up in our net, while Stolarz made a couple great saves. That, combined with some truly atrocious reffing that favoured the Leafs, was the difference.

 

[Micklebot]

Not sure why some people seem to think that every high danger scoring chance we face should be considered an automatic goal against and the goalie can't be expected to make a save in that situation.

Ullmark didn't make a key save all night. Pretty much every significant scoring chance ended up in our net, while Stolarz made a couple great saves. That, combined with some truly atrocious reffing that favoured the Leafs, was the difference.

Yeah, it comes down to this, you can have a bad game without giving up a bad goal.

I'd much rather Ullmark's bad game be like last night than what we saw from Korpisalo where bad goals were going in...

 

[OD99]

No our team did not. Go back and watch the game. We gifted Toronto the slot on multiple chances that led to goals. On the other hand Ottawa played a perimeter game for most of the night.

Brady had a clear breakaway early in the 2nd that would have tied the game.

Pinto was wide open in the slot, with almost too much time, Stolarz shut it down. That also would have tied the game. Zetterlund wide open with a wide open net and it goes off the shaft of Storarz stick.

Ullmark let's in that really weird one right after Greig bring us within 2...he let the team down, period.

Ullmark wasn't good. I am not sugarcoating his performance. I expect more from him. But we have this guy signed for five more years after this season and he needs more playoff experience.

He was brought in because he is good AND he has playoff experience, on a winning team.

Pulling him doesn't help him or our team long term. It doesn't help his confidence to say, yeah thanks for the regular season, but f*** you it's the playoffs..

You also don't get much rope in the playoffs. If he looks lost again tonight and let's in a few questionable goals, I think you need to really consider making a move. No player is bigger than the team, and right or wrong you need your goalie playing well - they don't get extra consideration for feelings.