Ottawa Senators Weekend Recap: Merilainen Steals the Show

Having lost six of their last seven games coming into the weekend, the Ottawa Senators needed someone to step up. Enter Leevi Merilainen. The 22 year old, with five career NHL starts entering the weekend, was picked to start Saturday against the Pittsburgh Penguins. A 29 save shutout later, Travis Green chose to start him again against the Dallas Stars. Merilainen made another 24 saves, helping the Ottawa Senators win 3-2. Total it all up, and Merilainen went 2-0, stopping 53 of the 55 shots he faced. Let’s dive into the details on the big two wins, and what this means for the Senators goaltending going forward.

READ MORE: Evaluating the Ridly Greig Extension

Senators Centre Trio Leads the Way Offensively

Here are the weekend numbers from the Senators big three up the middle:

• Tim Stützle: two goals
• Josh Norris: one goal, one assist
• Shane Pinto: two goals, one assist

Norris also threw 12 hits in the two games, while Pinto won 17 of his 25 faceoffs. It’s been well documented how the Senators typically win when these three all play. When you have all three of them creating offense as they centre different lines, it’s obvious to see why the Senators succeed with all of them in the lineup. They all help on the power play as well, and Pinto and Norris have both become important penalty killers as well.

Birthday Dominance from Giroux

How about a four point birthday weekend from Claude Giroux? He scored three assists against Pittsburgh, and added one more against Dallas. Giroux continues to do it all for the Senators. He ate up over 8 and half minutes on the penalty kill this weekend, and led the way with 33 faceoffs, winning 58% of them. While his offensive numbers have fallen off this year, this weekend was a good example to show how much Giroux means to this team.

Sanderson’s Resurgence

It’s been an up and down season for Sanderson. He sits at a team worst minus 14, but he’s also asked to play a team high 24:18 per game. The Sanderson-Hamonic pairing just didn’t work. With Zub back in the mix, you can expect a much better Sanderson going forward. He was rock solid this weekend, scoring an assist in each game and playing just over 50 minutes in the two games combined. With the Chabot and Jensen pairing playing so well, a second pairing of Sanderson and Zub playing at or near that level would be huge for the Senators.

Merilainen Steals the Show

I mentioned it in the intro paragraph how well Merilainen played. Funny enough, just a few days ago, I wrote about how the Senators were in trouble with their current goalie situation. Trust me, I don’t mind if Merilainen is able to make me eat those words. He showed a real sense of calmness to his game, always able to settle the Senators when they got a bit scrambled.

At just 22 years old and with so little NHL experience, I’m still worried about whether Merilainen can keep up this type of play. Given his great weekend, though, he should most definitely be given the chance to keep it going. Given Forsberg’s struggles over the last few seasons, he has no real claim to earning the lion’s share of the games while Ullmark is injured. As far as I’m concerned, Merilainen should be treated as the Senators number one goalie until his play falls off, or Ullmark comes back.

Additional Notes

I like the idea of rotating depth players into the lineup. I find the new players often come in full of adrenaline, looking to prove themselves worthy of NHL ice-time. The Ottawa Senators saw that with two different guys this weekend. First, Matthew Highmore, who scored his first goal as a Senator. The other was Nikolas Matinpalo, who has looked very solid on Ottawa’s third pair with Tyler Kleven. Senators fans wanted meaningful games and we’re getting them, but the crowded wildcard picture makes every game so incredibly stressful. There are nine teams separated by six points for the two wildcard spots in the East. 40 more games of this madness? Buckle up!