- NHL.com lists goaltending as the biggest question facing Ottawa in 2026-27
- Ullmark posted the first sub-.900 save percentage of his NHL career last season
- Read below for his post-Olympic split and what Samuel Ersson brings to the crease
Ottawa’s season runs through Linus Ullmark’s glove hand.
NHL.com laid out three questions facing the Senators on Thursday, and the one hanging over the rest of them is whether the crease holds up. Ottawa finished last season with a .870 save percentage and a 2.96 goals-against average as a team, near the bottom of the league.
Ullmark’s own line was the first sub-.900 save percentage of his NHL career. He went 28-12-8 with an .891 and a 2.73 in 49 games, and the two halves of that season looked nothing alike.
The turn came after the Olympic break. Once the schedule picked back up on Feb. 26, Ullmark went 12-4-3 with a .902 and a 2.51.
Something else changed around the same time. Ullmark had stepped away from the team for 35 days in January to deal with his mental health, and Ottawa brought in Maciej Szwoch, his old goalie coach from his MoDo days and a close friend, to work with him.
Szwoch stayed around for the rest of the year as a consultant, and in May the Senators made it permanent by hiring him as coordinator of goaltending scouting and development. Julian McKenzie of The Athletic had asked Ullmark weeks earlier what having Szwoch around had done for him:
Behind Ullmark, Ottawa went out and found a new backup. The Senators picked up Samuel Ersson’s rights from Toronto on June 26 for a fifth-round pick in 2027, then signed him to a two-year deal worth $4.4 million.
Steve Staios explained what Ottawa liked about the 26-year-old when the club announced the contract on July 1.
“Samuel is a goaltender we identified as a good fit with our system. He has a combination of NHL and international experience and has an upside that our staff is excited to work with.”
There is a catch. Ersson is coming off a rough year of his own, going 14-11-5 with a .870 and a 3.12 in 33 games for Philadelphia, the same save percentage Ottawa posted as a team.
Ullmark has never played more than 50 games in a season, so Ersson is going to get 30 starts whether Ottawa plans on it or not. Two goalies coming off down years both have to be better, and they have to do it at the same time.
