An analyst recently questioned Ullmark's intensity, and Ullmark questioned some aspects of his own offseason prep. Between that and his current numbers, there are goaltending concerns again in Ottawa.
Slow starts are not unfamiliar to Linus Ullmark.
After a relatively quiet first season at the helm as the general manager of the Ottawa Senators, Steve Staios made his biggest splash during the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, acquiring Ullmark from the Boston Bruins.
Dealt for Joonas Korpisalo, Mark Kastelic, and a late-2024 first-round pick, the addition of the Swedish goaltender was intended to strengthen a position that had struggled to replicate the consistency and results the organization had lacked since Craig Anderson's departure.
Ullmark made an incredible impression in his regular season debut with the Senators. In the Senators' home opener last season, he made 31 saves, with many being of the dazzling variety, to preserve a 3-1 win over the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
Game-altering saves in the opening minutes of the third period spurred fans to chant Ullmark's name, but his impressive performance ultimately earned him the honour of being named the game's first star.
Following that performance, however, it took Ullmark time to find his game. He aggravated his back during the Senators' second game of the season in Montreal, and upon return, he looked out of sync.
Through his first 13 appearances, he posted a 4-7-1 record with an .881 save percentage and a 3.10 goals against average. According to Evolving-Hockey's game logs, Ullmark's accrued goals saved above expected was -6.65 during this span.
They are numbers that are eerily similar to his struggles early on this season. In 11 appearances, Ullmark has compiled a 5-4-2 record, an .861 save percentage and a 3.41 goals against average. Of the 67 goaltenders who have appeared in an NHL game this season, no goaltender has accrued a lower goals saved above expected metric (GSAx) per Evolving-Hockey than Linus Ullmark's -9.41.
In a league driven by parity, success is predicated on experiencing strong five-on-five play and goaltending concurrently. To the Senators' credit, they have played really well through stretches at five-on-five. They rank in the top 10 in several key defensive metrics like the rate at which they allow shots, shots on goal, and expected goals.
Unfortunately, like last season, when there have been defensive breakdowns or pivotal moments in games, their goaltenders have not bailed them out often enough.
The good news is that Linus Ullmark has stepped up in these moments before.
Between November 27th and December 19th last season, Ullmark was incredible.
He stopped 270 of 283 shots in 547:20 of ice time across nine games, fuelling an 8-0-1 record, a .954 goals against average and a 1.43 goals against average.
That stretch of hockey vaulted the Senators up the standings and put them into playoff contention—a position they maintained until mid-April, when they clinched their first postseason berth in eight years.
Ullmark was a significant factor in his team's success.
According to last season's NHL Edge data, Ullmark finished the season with 60.5 percent of his starts featuring save percentages greater than .900, ranking him in the 88th percentile of goaltenders. His .829 high-danger save percentage ranked in the 80th percentile, while his 15.58 goals saved above expected was the 17th highest in the league.
His numbers have dropped precipitously this season.
His performances have not only elicited concerns from fans but from goaltending analysts covering the league.
The Athletic's resident goaltending expert Jesse Granger expressed concern with Ullmark during a recent episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. Steve Valiquette, an MSG analyst and CEO of Clear Sight Analytics, was highly critical of Ullmark on Sportsnet's 'Real Kyper & Bourne' program in October.
"I learned this in probably my third or fourth year as a pro, because I was starting to get comfortable in the American Hockey League," Valiquette explained. "You are not any good if you just put your gear on and expect to be a player without putting in the preparation and intensity required to play at a high level.
"I'm watching Thatcher Demko this weekend. I'm watching (Juuse) Soros this weekend. These guys are playing with such intensity that they look like they're a dog on a bone. When I watch Ullmark, as skilled as he is, he never looks like he has a level of intensity that would allow his skills to show up in their greatest form.
"That's why the leaky ones are going through right now. I think that he's so good at the sport that he gets away with letting his talent carry him, rather than having the intensity that's required to really be at his best and be the highest performer that he could be. I remember talking to you guys about this in October last year, this guy is going to make everybody in that organization pull their hair out and I think it's already happening."
Valiquette's reflections reminded me of Ullmark's comments on the second day of training camp where he was critical of his performances and dropped a particular piece of information that was intriguing.
When describing his offseason process and how he began his on-ice training in August, Ullmark reflected on goaltending coach Justin Peters coming over to visit and work with him in Sweden.
"(Peters) came over and we did a full week of trying to get a head start working on different details and the mindset," Ullmark stated. "I thought it was a pretty good month, but I think we are gonna have to do some little changes for next summer that might improve how I feel now."
Considering that training camp occurs at a time of optimism, when every team's record is the same and players typically arrive in great shape, Ullmark's comments ran counter to that.
There may be some commonality between Valiquette's assessment that Ullmark relies too often on natural talent and Ullmark's assessment of how he cannot arrive in training camp next season feeling like he did this year.
On the other hand, Ullmark has always been an eccentric and unconventional speaker. As much as the goaltender hates repetitive or lazy questions in a scrum, he avoids relying on canned and cliched responses to questions, often pausing to gather his thoughts and intermixing quirkiness and humour in his answers.
Ullmark can be self-deprecating. He is his own harshest critic, and as he reminded the media this morning, he does not care about the outside noise.
"I can't say it here," Ullmark said bluntly. "There are so many things I'd like to say to all the people, all the doubters and the so-called experts that I can't say (here).
"It is what it is. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but the only opinions that matter are those of the people around me, whom I care about and the coaches. What everybody else has to say, they are entitled to say whatever they want because I don't give two s**** about it."
Fortunately, as a goaltender with a .915 career save percentage across 11 seasons in the NHL, it's reasonable to believe the version of Linus Ullmark we are seeing now should improve. Moreover, if he did not feel physically at his best in camp because of his offseason preparations, he may get markedly better as his body adjusts to the season's workload and he gets more reps under his belt. And, as I mentioned previously, he experienced a similar situation last season before turning in an incredible stretch of play between November and December.
Conversely, the concerns being raised in this city and across the league are very real.
It is the responsibility of every player to put in the work to ensure they are the best version of themselves. That responsibility only grows and gets more challenging as players age. As a 32-year-old goaltender who plays an incredibly mentally and physically demanding position, hearing Ullmark openly question his offseason preparation, and then having a former professional goaltender question his intensity, is alarming -- especially given the considerable investment (three years, $8.25 million AAV) remaining on his contract beyond this season.
There is also the consideration that the nine-game stretch from November through December, in which he posted unsustainably strong metrics, inflated his total numbers.
- 2024-25 Season: 44 appearances, 25-14-3 record, 2.72 GAA, .909 SV%, 4 SO, 15.58 GSAx
- 2024-25 Postseason: 6 appearances, 2-4 record, 2.84 GAA, .880 SV%, 1 SO,- 0.98 GSAx
- 2025-26 Season: 11 appearances, 5-4-2 record, 3.41 GAA, .861 SV%, 0 SO, -9.41 GSAx
- Sens Career: 61 appearances, 32-22-5 record, 2.87 GAA, .899 SV%, 5 SO, 5.19 GSAx
Taking out that nine-game stretch, in Ullmark's 52 other games, he has compiled a 24-22-4 record with a 3.13 GAA and an .887 save percentage.
That said, subtracting any player's best stretch of games will obviously cause their numbers to suffer. In this case, it has to be a little concerning that, outside this one month of games, Ullmark has not sustained a high level of play for an extended period.
For the Senators to take that next step in the franchise's development, they will need their goaltenders to play at a higher level. Both Ullmark and Leevi Merilainen are capable of more, but the organization and the players have work to do to unlock that consistency.
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