The Ottawa Senators are still waiting for Samuel Ersson to give them a start they can trust.
Through his first stretch this season, the story around Ersson has been hard to ignore: Ottawa has taken only two losses in games he’s started, but those nights have come with plenty of baggage. In both, the Senators looked flat and unready, and Ersson has also been asked to survive some rough lineups. Last night’s group may have been the toughest yet, with the team forced to dress three rookie defenders.
That said, the excuses only go so far.
Ersson has not given Ottawa much reason to feel comfortable handing him the net when Linus Ullmark needs a breather. He’s sitting at a 5.26 GAA and an .829 SV%, and while not every goal against St.
Louis could be pinned on him, enough of them were that the pressure kept building. The fourth goal against stood out as the kind of play a backup has to erase.
Ersson was set in the RVH, one knee down against the post, and still a shot slipped through. On most nights, that puck stays out.
On this night, Ottawa needed that stop.
Instead, the game kept slipping away.
After that, Ersson looked increasingly out of sync, like a goalie trying to force his way back into control after confidence had already leaked out. That’s part of the job description at the position, of course.
Goalies live alone in there. But when the skaters in front of him are failing, he still has to settle things down the way Ullmark has so often done.
Against the Blues, the Senators were burned on odd-man rushes and power-play looks, and the result was seven goals against.
The same pattern showed up against the Detroit Red Wings. Once Ersson gave up the first goal in a shaky way, the rest of his night unraveled, with rebound control and reads both slipping. Even in relief against the Boston Bruins, his decision-making and play directly led to the goal that ended the shutout.
For now, Ersson’s backup job is not on life support. But if he has another night like this, Jonas Johansson could be the next man up while Ersson either tries to clean up his game or lands on waivers. Ottawa needs him to handle the tough saves when the team is on its heels, but it also needs him to cash in the routine ones before things snowball.
The Senators learned last season how quickly bad goaltending can drag everything down. This year, Ullmark has been outstanding and has carried them through most of their wins, but general manager Steve Staios may still want to keep one eye on the warning light.
The questions around Ersson were there from the start, and the contract attached to him only added to the confusion. Ottawa also already lost a goalie of the future in Leevi Merilainen, who ended up on waivers and has since found his footing with the Vancouver Canucks.
So both parts of this can be true: the Senators need Ersson to deliver a quality start, and the team in front of him has to be much better. But Ersson can only control his own crease, and right now that’s where the concern lives.
His next start will likely come with the best setup Ottawa can give him, possibly against his old team, the Philadelphia Flyers, if Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub are back to help steady the defense. The pressure is already there.
Now Ersson has to answer it.
In Other News...
Senators Rough Night At Home Just Raised A Bigger Concern
A three-game winning streak disappeared in a hurry at home Tuesday night, and the Senators never found much of a foothold in a 7-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues. Ottawas offense was limited to goals from Claude Giroux and Fabian Zetterlund, part of a night in which the club generated only 17 shots and spent too much time chasing the game.
The bigger concern, though, was at the other end, where Samuel Ersson made his first home start for Ottawa and was quickly overwhelmed. The backup goaltender gave up seven goals on 26 shots, leaving the Senators with an unsettling result that went well beyond a single bad outing and into the kind of performance that can start asking harder questions about the overall direction of the team. [Read more 🡒]
Ottawa Letting Leevi Merilainen Go Looks Tougher By The Week
Leevi Merilainen keeps giving Vancouver a reason to lean on him, and the latest example came in a game against the New York Islanders. With Thatcher Demko sidelined, the young goaltender stepped into a bigger role and helped keep the Canucks competitive even after they gave up two quick goals late in the first period.
Merilainen finished with 35 saves as Vancouver clawed back to tie it in the second period before the Islanders pulled away in the third. For Ottawa, which let Merilainen get away, the early returns keep making that decision look harder to justify each time he gets a meaningful chance to play. [Read more 🡒]
Flyers Blue Line Still Has A Problem As Injuries Keep Lingering
In a stretch where injuries keep reshaping lineups across the Atlantic Division, the Senators are watching their own health picture closely after Ridly Greig exited a recent game with a strain. Ottawa has not offered a firm update on his status, which adds another layer of uncertainty at a time when the club is already tracking absences elsewhere around the division, including Buffalo being without Rasmus Dahlin, Tyson Kozak and Alex Lyon for its next game against Toronto.
For Ottawa, Greigs availability matters because he has been a regular part of the mix this season, taking on meaningful minutes and contributing in a supporting role. The concern now is less about one game than about whether the Senators will be able to keep their forward group intact as Philadelphia continues to deal with blue-line injuries and the ripple effects of these lineup holes keep growing. [Read more 🡒]