Leevi Meriläinen enters this season in a very different spot than he did a year ago, and the Senators seem intent on giving him a setup that can actually help his game grow. After a rough first run as a regular NHL goaltender last season, he still kept his one-way contract alive with a one-year, $1.1 million deal signed in July. He also just turned 24 last week, which leaves plenty of room for Ottawa to see what he can become.
The big shift is in how the Senators plan to use their crease. With Linus Ullmark and Samuel Ersson in the mix, Meriläinen should not be asked to carry the kind of workload that was placed on him last season.
That matters. He was thrust into a heavy role behind a starter who had never played more than 49 games in a season, and that was a tall order for a young goalie still finding his footing.
The numbers from last year tell the story. In Ottawa, Meriläinen went 8-10-1 with a .860 save percentage and a 3.51 goals-against average.
In Belleville, he was much sharper, finishing 8-8-1 with a .909 save percentage and a 2.77 GAA. Those split results point to a goalie who still needs the right environment to settle in and develop properly.
Ottawa’s team structure at 5-on-5 gave him some help, since the Senators were strong enough that he mostly needed to handle the saves he should stop. The problem came when the pressure increased and he had to function as the clear starter after Ullmark went on leave.
That’s where things got messy. He lost some focus on the first save, and his positioning and concentration slipped.
A bad night against Montreal also left a mark when Jake Sanderson called him out afterward, then later apologized for the comment after Meriläinen had been unable to make more than 10 saves in the game.
Belleville was no easy landing spot either. Team defense was a mess, results never really turned, and head coach David Bell was fired in mid-December.
Even after Andrew Campbell took over, the defensive play did not improve much. So Meriläinen spent last season dealing with two difficult team environments while trying to edge closer to becoming a full-time NHL goalie.
There is also a roster wrinkle that could work in his favor. Because he is now waiver eligible, it would make sense for Ottawa to keep him in the NHL rather than risk losing him for nothing.
The thinking is that GM Steve Staios will not repeat the Donovan Sebrango situation from last season, when Sebrango was lost on waivers to Florida. Meriläinen has too much upside for that, and there would be no shortage of rebuilding teams willing to take a shot on him.
The Senators’ stated plan is to follow the Carolina Hurricanes’ model and run a three-goalie setup. Last year, Carolina used Freddy Andersen, Brandon Bussi and Pyotr Kochetkov, and Ottawa wants something similar.
If all three goalies are healthy and playing at an average level, one possible rotation would have Ullmark starting every second game while Ersson and Meriläinen alternate the next starts. That would leave Ullmark with 42 starts and Ersson and Meriläinen with 21 each.
For Meriläinen, that would be a workable number of NHL games, provided his play stays steady.
There is still a path for him to climb higher. If he outperforms Ersson, he could grab the backup job outright.
Even then, Ullmark remains the clear No. 1 in the organization for the rest of his contract. And if Ullmark’s performance slips, Travis Green should not hesitate to give Meriläinen another chance, especially given the way the Finn has approached things over the last two seasons.
Long term, the Senators would love for Meriläinen to become a reliable starter within three years and eventually take over the top job from Ullmark. He is set to become a UFA in the 2030-31 season at age 27, and Ottawa clearly wants a goalie who can handle something in the 50-to-60-game range over an 84-game schedule.
The cost of the crease is already significant. The Senators are spending $11,550,000 on their three goaltenders this season, plus a $1,000,000 cap hit for Joonas Korpisalo, for a total of $12,550,000. That works out to more than 12 percent of the cap, which sits near the top of the league.
For now, the focus stays on Meriläinen and whether this three-goalie arrangement can finally put him in a position to show what he can really do. The optimism around him remains strong, and he even drew an eighth-overall ranking from S7 writers and readers. This season should tell us a lot about how far he can push his share of the work.
In Other News...
Oilers Fans May Not Love How One Old Trade Is Aging
Mattias Ekholm has been the kind of steady addition Edmonton hoped for when it paid the price to bring him in, but the longer the trade sits, the more attention shifts to what the Oilers gave up to get him. Reid Schaefer, the prospect included in that deal, is starting to show the sort of promise in Nashville that can make an old transaction feel a little sharper with hindsight, especially when a contender is always balancing today against tomorrow.
For Ottawa fans, there is at least a nearby reminder that the hockey conversation can move quickly from one storyline to the next. Brady Tkachuk recently drew some online ribbing after mistakenly referring to Seattle as a Canadian city, another small moment that got plenty of traction around the league and in Senators circles. Meanwhile, the broader hockey media backdrop keeps changing too, with Ron MacLean returning to Hockey Night in Canada and drawing a mixed response from viewers after Kelly Hrudeys departure. [Read more 🡒]
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The latest stretch offered a more encouraging snapshot. After rehabbing an upper-body injury during the 2025-26 season, Boucher finished the year with Belleville and delivered career-best production while showing the kind of progress Ottawa has been waiting to see. He has also been making changes behind the scenes to better manage his body, and he says he feels confident about where his game is headed from here. [Read more 🡒]
Senators Already Face A Familiar Fear In The Atlantic
The early look at the NHL landscape does not exactly offer Ottawa much breathing room. Even before the season has been played, the Atlantic Division appears loaded with playoff-caliber rosters, and that alone is enough to make the Senators' path look uncomfortable. These are only offseason projections, of course, but they reflect the kind of pressure Ottawa has been living with as it tries to move from promising to firmly in the mix.
What makes the outlook sting is how thin the margin could be if those projections hold up. Tankathon's early draft order has the Senators sitting in a spot that would leave them just outside the postseason picture, a reminder that in a division this competitive, one bad stretch can matter a lot. And with the East's wild-card race expected to be crowded, Ottawa may spend the winter chasing not just wins, but the kind of consistency that keeps a good season from turning into a near miss. [Read more 🡒]