HIGHLIGHTS
- Ullmark told The Athletic he is “broken” and still not fully healed, revealing why he missed a start against Tampa Bay on March 28
- The Senators’ Masterton nominee is 12-4-3 since returning from a month-long mental health leave in January
- Read below for what Ullmark said about the online attacks, losing his love for hockey, and why athletes don’t speak up
Linus Ullmark is done pretending everything is fine.
The Ottawa Senators goaltender spoke with select reporters from the Ottawa chapter of the PHWA on Friday, opening up about his mental health in a way few NHL players ever have. The conversation, detailed by The Athletic’s Julian McKenzie, painted a picture of a player grinding through one of the hardest seasons of his life, on and off the ice.
“I am broken, and I’m still not fully, completely healed,” Ullmark said. He then addressed the criticism he caught for missing a start against the Lightning on March 28, a game Ottawa lost 4-2 with the team deep in a playoff push.
“If we say Thomas Chabot has his injury, no one is going to question that. But just because I’ve been playing and all that, and all of a sudden I’m not available. People just started attacking me.”
The 32-year-old said he was “not having the best of days” leading up to that Tampa game. He wasn’t resting. He wasn’t being managed. He was trying to get through it.
Ullmark is Ottawa’s nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, given to the player who best exemplifies perseverance and dedication to hockey. He was thankful for the recognition but called it “bittersweet.”
“You don’t really want it because that means you’ve gone through a lot of stuff,” he said. “It means that you’re going through hardships that maybe people don’t want you to go through.”
The trouble started early. Ullmark called his training camp showing “pretty terrible” and was pulled in his first preseason game after giving up three goals on eight shots to Toronto. His goals saved above expected ranked among the league’s worst through the first half. On December 27, he allowed four on 16 shots against the Maple Leafs and was pulled again midway through the second.
That was the breaking point. He took a personal leave in late December for mental health reasons. He’d been dealing with anxiety attacks before and during that start in Toronto. He didn’t know what was wrong. He didn’t know how to fix it.
“I needed more help at that point, and it was scary at the moment as well,” Ullmark said.
He first spoke publicly about the situation in a January interview with TSN’s Claire Hanna, revealing the anxiety attacks and his decision to contact the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program. Within days of his leave, anonymous accounts had started spreading fabricated rumors about him online. The Senators put out a statement denouncing “trolls and sick people” for sharing false stories. His teammates denied all of it.
He returned to the team in mid-January and joined them on a road trip through Detroit, Columbus, and Nashville. But he wasn’t ready to play yet. He had a personal checklist to get through first. At the top of it was something that had nothing to do with saves or positioning.
“There was no eagerness, there was no love, there was no joy of even thinking about playing hockey,” Ullmark said. “It was getting that joy in my everyday life back, being able to have fun with my kids and generally have fun with them, and not fake it ’til you make it.”
When he finally played on January 31 against New Jersey, the crowd at Canadian Tire Centre cheered and held signs for him. The Senators brought in his former youth goaltending coach, Maciej Szwoch, to work alongside him. Victor Hedman and Connor Hellebuyck both reached out with support.
“We trust him, believe in him, but also there’s no pressure,” forward Tim Stutzle said in January. “I was just really happy to see him back.”
Since returning, Ullmark is 12-4-3 in 19 starts. On Tuesday, he stopped 28 shots in a 6-2 win over the Lightning, the same team he couldn’t face on March 28. Ottawa is holding onto the second wild card spot in the East with a handful of games left.
The numbers are there. But the daily cost of showing up is something the box score doesn’t capture. The Senators have started giving Ullmark maintenance days off morning skates. He described running on low fumes some days, and said there are moments when his battery is so drained he doesn’t want to be around anyone.
“And when those times happen in your home, and you have two kiddos, you have to be able to give them everything that you can,” he said.
“I’m still very much fighting the demons every single day,” Ullmark said. “The difference is that I have more tools and more knowledge about this whole situation and about myself, so I’m able to handle it better than I was beforehand.”
The fact that Ullmark is saying all of this publicly, while still going through it, while still playing in a playoff race, matters. Most athletes in his position would shut the door and say nothing. He watched what happened when he asked for help the first time. People made up lies about him within 24 hours. And he’s still talking. That takes more guts than stopping a puck.
