It would appear that the Ottawa Senators will begin the 2025-26 season with a legitimate NHL Rookie of the Year candidate. That candidate is goaltender Leevi Meriläinen, who just turned 23 last month.
While most goalies that young are generally just happy to make the NHL, Merilainen isn’t ‘most goalies’. And, by the way, for those of you ready to flood the comments with, ‘There goes the media again, heaping unnecessary extra pressure on the kids,’ remember that the young Finn has already had his NHL baptism-by-fire and came through it without a single burn.
With Anton Forsberg allowed to walk into free agency this summer—eventually signing with the Los Angeles Kings—it left a vacancy in Ottawa behind starter Linus Ullmark. If you had asked the Senators a year ago who would fill that role, they would have confidently said Mads Søgaard, their 6-foot-7 goaltender drafted in the second round of the 2019 NHL Draft. That’s why they agreed to a one-way NHL contract for this season. They were pretty sure that Søgaard was the next man up.
But as often happens in the NHL, things can change quickly.
Søgaard’s development has been slowed by injuries, while Meriläinen was unexpectedly thrust into NHL duty at just 22 last season. And in the heart of a playoff chase, Meriläinen played completely out of his mind for the Senators.
In 12 appearances, Meriläinen allowed only 22 goals, posting three shutouts, a 1.90 goals-against average, and a .925 save percentage. Small sample size? Yes. But those numbers were significantly better than those of either Ullmark or Forsberg.
When Forsberg returned to health, GM Steve Staios was clear about wanting to protect his goaltending depth. So Staios farmed out Meriläinen because he was waiver-exempt and could be sent down without incident. If the decision had been based strictly on merit, Meriläinen wouldn’t have gone anywhere. In fact, after putting up a record of 8-3-1, it would have been fascinating, in hindsight, to see how the kid might have fared in the postseason.
Ottawa Senators Sign Goaltender Leevi Meriläinen To New One-Way Contract
The Ottawa Senators have signed goaltender Leevi Meriläinen to a one-year, one-way contract extension worth an average annual value of $1.05 million.
Now, with Forsberg gone to Los Angeles, Meriläinen will be Ottawa’s full-time backup. And if he comes anywhere close to last season’s level, his name will undoubtedly enter the Calder Trophy conversation. First-year goalies don’t often get enough starts to generate Rookie of the Year buzz. In fact, it’s been 16 years since a goalie won it (Columbus’ Steve Mason in 2009).
But Ullmark’s career history leaves that door open.
Even in his Vezina Trophy-winning season with Boston in 2023, Ullmark’s career high is 49 games, thanks to injuries and platoon usage, so there should be plenty of starts available for Meriläinen. There’s a chance he plays half the schedule, plus any games where Ullmark gets an early hook.
Among NHL goalies who played at least 10 games last year, Meriläinen was the youngest. A glance at the stats of his peers in their early 20s shows why most clubs hesitate to lean on goalies that young. It’s not a position where players are expected to thrive early.
But again, there’s something different about Meriläinen.
It isn’t just his poise, fundamentals and uber-quiet movement in the crease. It isn’t exclusively his excellent run last season—one that arguably saved Ottawa’s playoff hopes. It’s also his mindset. Ask him one of those standard media questions—“How are you doing this at such a young age?”—and he’ll probably respond matter-of-factly, with a shrug, without even a hint of nerves or arrogance, and say something like:
I don’t know, I guess because it’s my job?
Maybe, as a policy, he doesn’t want to engage in armchair psychology or overthink it, or maybe he genuinely doesn’t see the big deal. Maybe he sees it as the children’s game it’s supposed to be. Either way, as Senators fans will come to learn, he’s just a calm, steady person who’s here to do his job.
That’s part of why he may emerge this season as more than a kid who’s just happy to be here.
Meanwhile, it Meriläinen truly breaks into the Calder Trophy discussion, it could get expensive for the Senators. He’ll not only be a restricted free agent again next summer but also arbitration-eligible. And as the team is well aware, arbitrators tend to notice that stuff, those little things like winning major individual awards.
That, however, is a bridge Ottawa will happily cross if it means they’ve found another gem between the pipes.
By Steve Warne
This article was first published at The Hockey News-Ottawa
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