My golfing buddies and I always enjoy a frosty pint or two after our weekly round at Pakenham Highlands Golf Club in the beautiful Ottawa Valley. After debating how some of us “woulda’, coulda’ and shoulda’” scored better, the discussion often turns to solving the world’s problems. This week, there was no more pressing problem than the Ottawa Senators’ goaltending situation.
The boys all agreed that the Senators’ president of hockey operations and general manager (GM), Steve Staios, had to solve his team’s abysmal puck-stopping. That is, except for one of my pals, who took everyone aback by arguing that Staios already had a solution. His name is Joonas Korpisalo.
Arguably a better hockey pundit than a golfer, my mate won me over to his way of thinking. Korpisalo could not only be the long-sought-after solution to the Senators’ problems in goal, but he may have to be depending on how this summer’s player swaps go for Staios.
I can already hear the guffaws at the idea that Korpisalo can be salvaged and become at least a serviceable minder of the twine next season. But hear me out.
Is Korpisalo What His 2023-24 Season Says He Is?
First, let’s get Korpisalo’s numbers this season out of the way. I’m not going to defend the indefensible, and neither will Korpisalo. As he explained back in Feb., “I need to be better. It’s nothing crazier than that. I need more wins. It’s as simple as that” (from Bruce Garrioch, “SNAPSHOTS: Joonas Korpisalo knows he has to be better for the Senators,” Ottawa Sun, 2/29/24).
Related: Senators Could Regret Joonas Korpisalo Contract
Just to show that Korpisalo knows what he speaks, let’s look at what the statistics say about Ottawa’s goaltending this season. Perhaps the most telling stat is the number of games in which the team’s goalies gave up four or more goals. You won’t win in this league if you do that too often – and it’s something the Senators did in 37 of the 82 games they played this season. Put another way, almost half the time opposing teams laced up against the Senators this season, they knew they’d face the proverbial sieve between the pipes, whether that was Korpisalo or Anton Forsberg.
In Moneypuck’s ranking of NHL goalies in the 2023-24 season, Korpisalo placed 97th. Ranked as a duo, Korpisalo and Forsberg are 31st in the league according to the venerable publication for which I write – The Hockey Writers.
Korpisalo’s save percentage this season was just .890, and his average goals-against per game (GAA) was 3.27. To put that into perspective, a run-of-the-mill NHL netminder has an SV% of .904 and a GAA of 2.91.
But do these stats reflect who Korpisalo really is as a goaltender? One bad season does not a goalie make. Also, does anyone really believe that Ottawa’s goals-against stat this season (26th in the league) can all be blamed on its goaltending?
Could Korpisalo Be Better Than His 2023-24 Numbers Say?
Dave Poulin, the Senators’ senior vice president of hockey operations, thinks so, and he’s not prepared to say that Korpisalo can’t be salvaged. Poulin said at a season-ticket holders event earlier in June, “We didn’t help our goalies very much. We have to improve our goaltending situation. Can that come from the two goaltenders we have? It can, but that’s still to be determined.”
Poulin’s comments echo those of Staios earlier in the season. The GM pointed out, “I do believe the goaltenders we have are better than their numbers. So, the question is, do you address that because they had off years? You know, there’s a number of areas that we need to address.”
Over the eight seasons he played with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Korpisalo put up a save percentage of .903 and a goals-against average per game of 3.06. That borders on the respectable by NHL standards.
If Korpisalo is guilty of anything, it’s inconsistency. There were years in Columbus when he notched an SV% of well over .900 and a GAA as low as 2.60. That was followed by years when his SV% sank as low as .894, and his GAA rose as high as 3.30. Yet that’s not surprising for a young netminder. He has just turned 30 years old. NHL goalies take a long time to season, and many don’t show their true potential until they are in their thirties.
Not only that, but he never back-stopped strong teams during his time in Columbus. The Blue Jackets failed to make the playoffs in four of the seven full seasons he played with them, and in the remaining three, they only advanced beyond the first round once.
Arguably, the current edition of the Senators is worse than the Blue Jackets were when Korpisalo played with them. In front of him in Ottawa is a weak lineup prone to making all kinds of defensive zone blunders that lead to goals. Had the skaters in front of him played a tighter game, Bytown goaltending may not have been a topic of discussion at my golf club this summer.
At times over his career and with Ottawa in particular, Korpisalo has shown flashes of brilliance. Just ask the Toronto Maple Leafs, who faced him in the qualifying round of the 2019-20 playoffs, shortened as that season was by the COVID pandemic. Despite the Maple Leafs’ much-ballyhooed firepower, he notched a GAA of just 1.90 and an incredible SV% of .941 in that five-game series.
Throughout his career, he has demonstrated an ability to play at a level that makes him respectable anywhere in the league. As he recently said about his game, “The basic building blocks are there.” That’s a display of confidence he’ll need to turn his game around next season. Under the Senators’ new goalie coaching regime and with better-coached and disciplined skaters playing in front of him, Korpisalo may yet live up to the hype on which he rode into Bytown last summer.
Korpisalo May Be Senators Only Option for 2024-25 Season
Some argue that Staios needs to buy out the remaining $16 million on Korpisalo’s contract and then shop for a new goalie on the free agency market. Forget it. Ottawa simply doesn’t have the cap space to do that. Not that the Senators would need to pay that in a lump sum. According to CapFriendly, they could bring the effective cost of a buyout down to $10 million and change, but that would mean they’d need to carry $1.3 million in dead cap space for the next eight seasons.
Even if Staios could find a taker for Korpisalo or buy him out, the free agency market for a replacement goalie this summer will be very thin. Those twine minders available are either too old (see the Los Angeles Kings’ Cam Talbot and the Minnesota Wild’s Marc-Andre Fleury), regarded as being untouchable by their current teams, and likely re-signed (see the Boston Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman and Dustin Wolf of the Calgary Flames) or not much better than Korpisalo and Forsberg.
As for trading for a better goaltender, Staios’ options are limited. Jacob Markstrom was rumored to be a target for the Senators, but he was traded to the New Jersey Devils on June 19. The Nashville Predators’ Juuse Saros is rumored to be on Staios’ shopping list. Still, he’ll come at a hefty price, with some saying that to sign him beyond the 2024-25 season, after which he becomes a free agent, the Senators would have to offer a six-to-eight-year deal with an average annual salary (AAV) north of $8 million. I’d wager that Staios can’t make that deal work, given how tight he finds himself against the salary cap.
The Senators are said to be in hot pursuit of a deal with the Bruins’ Linus Ullmark. That acquisition could come at the cost of at least Jakob Chychrun and possibly a first-round draft pick. Given that the Senators won’t likely be a playoff contender for a few years yet, that raises the question of whether the Senators can get by with average in their goal. After all, acquiring a top-tier netminder only becomes necessary when the Senators are good enough to contend for a spot in the postseason.
Related: Senators Should Deal Jakob Chychrun to Bruins for Linus Ullmark
Not only that, but the Senators aren’t the only team pursuing Ullmark and Saros. There could be a bidding war for either of them, and whether Staios can land one will depend on their willingness to come to a small-market Canadian franchise like Ottawa.
Senators May Be Forced to Salvage Korpisalo
By any measure, it looks like the Senators may well be stuck with Korpisalo. If that’s the case, there’s no option but to try to salvage him either as a backup to a new starting goalie or as the team’s number one. He has the potential to be salvaged.
