Connect with us

Senators News

Senators Lock in Linus Ullmark to Big Contract

Published

on

With this new contract, Linus Ullmark will remain in Ottawa for the next five years (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)

How’s that for some great news the day before the Ottawa Senators start their 2024-25 regular season? The Senators signed Linus Ullmark to a four year, $33 million contract. That will keep Ullmark in Ottawa for the next five years, with the contract expiring at the end of the 2028-29 season. Let’s dive into the details of the deal.



READ MORE: Getting to Know Linus Ullmark

Details of Ullmark’s New Contract

Ullmark will be paid $7 million in year one, $8 million in year two, and $9 million in years three and four. He has a full no-movement clause throughout the contract. He will be 35 when the deal comes to an end. The deal is for 9.38% of the cap. It is the exact same cap hit as his former teammate Jeremy Swayman. Ilya Sorokin also signed for the same cap hit in the summer of 2023. Of course, those deals are eight years long.

Great Deal for both the team and Ullmark

In late August, I did my best to project Ullmark’s next deal. I tried to find the best comparables but there wasn’t a perfect goalie out there. Given his time spent in a tandem, as well as his age, Ullmark made for a challenging comparable. Hellebuyck was the high-end comparable at 9.66% of the cap, while Grubauer was the low-end at 7.24%. In the end, he came closer to Hellebuyck than I would’ve anticipated, but that was in large part due to this new Jeremy Swayman deal. Swayman’s new contract ended up making for the obvious comparable. They had shared the crease in Boston for the last few years, both having plenty of success. Given the age difference (Swayman is only 25), it made sense for the Senators to lock in Ullmark to a shorter deal. So the Senators get Ullmark at the same cap hit as Swayman for half the length.

Goalies Being Held in High Value

The rumours of the Igor Shesterkin turning down a massive deal from the Rangers illustrates how highly valued goalies are in today’s NHL. Teams have watched the Florida Panthers win a Stanley Cup with Sergei Bobrovsky leading the way, huge contract and all. The same can be said with the Tampa Bay Lighting, as Andrei Vasilevsky has obviously been a huge part of their success. You either pay these goalies big money, or some other team will. From there, it’s about the goalie playing up to the contract.

In the end, the Senators couldn’t afford to make a mess out of these contract negotiations. It has been a number of years of frustrating goaltending for the Senators. In the post Craig Anderson era, they wrongly put their faith in Matt Murray, Cam Talbot, and Joonas Korpisalo. With the rising cap, Ullmark’s contract will start to take up less of the cap as the years go by. He’s a Vezina trophy winner who’s put up good, if not great numbers for the last several years. This even goes back to his time with the Sabres while playing for a mediocre team.

Yes, there is some risk in this deal. Ullmark has to prove himself capable of a heavier workload. At $8.25 million per season, that makes him one of the highest paid goalies in the league. He needs to be a true number one goalie, starting over 70% of the Senators games. If he can be that true number one for the Senators, Steve Staios’ trade will go down as one the greatest in Senators history.

Welcome to your new home for Ottawa Senators breaking news, analysis and opinion. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and don't forget to subscribe to OHN+ for all of our members-only content from Danny McCloskey and the National Hockey Now network.