Ottawa Senators GM Steve Staios on Linus Ullmark, the trade market and being a Stanley Cup contender

The timetable for Linus Ullmark’s return to the Ottawa Senators remains the biggest mystery to everybody, including Steve Staios.

The club’s president of hockey operations and general manager held a mid-season media availability on Saturday morning at the Canadian Tire Centre. Staios confirmed the Senators have no idea when their top goaltender will return from a leave of absence he was granted a week ago.

Before hosting the Winnipeg Jets at home, Staios stated that one of the areas which needs to improve in the second half is the goaltending from Ullmark and backup Leevi Merilainen, who has been thrust into the No. 1 role until the latter returns.

“Linus knows he’s got our full support, and we’re going to respect not having a comment on that situation,” Staios said. “We have full belief in Linus, along with Leevi, who’s a good young goaltender who continues to develop, along with our depth with Mads Sogaard and Hunter Shepherd.

“We know what Linus is as a goaltender. He knows what he is as a goaltender, but at this point, he has our full support until we have him back.”

Do you have any timeline on when that might be?

“No,” Staios said. “We’ll just leave it at that. We’ll give him the time he needs to be afforded to make sure things are in order.”

ON THE GOALTENDING

The Senators went into the visit by Winnipeg with the worst save percentage in the league at .873.

Whenever Ullmark gets back, and it doesn’t sound like it will be anytime soon, he has to improve. He has a 14-8-5 record with a 2.95 goals-against average and a .881 save percentage in 28 games.

Merilainen made his third straight start against the Jets. He went into the game with a 5-7-0 record, a 3.46 GAA and a .872 save percentage.”

“We live in reality, and there are a couple of areas of our game that aren’t up to expectation,” Staios said. “We can talk about goaltending, and if the goaltenders were in here, they’d be honest and tell you they haven’t played to expectations.”

I told Staios that is shocking that with the worst save percentage and the worst penalty kill that the Senators are even in the hunt for a playoff spot, but if they improve, that would help matters. He agreed with my assessment.

“We live in reality. When we look at it, we watch it, we look at the numbers, that’s really, and we have faith that both can improve,” Staios said.

But Staios has no plans to look for a goalie at the moment.

“The optimism comes that over the last month or so they have played to expectations,” he said. “It wasn’t the best of starts for them, but it had stabilized. I would feel comfortable in saying that it will continue to stabilize and move in the right direction.”

If the club does need to go get a goaltender, given the cap situation, Staios didn’t rule out asking the league to give the organization cap relief because of the special circumstances involving Ullmark’s absence.

ON BEING A CONTENDER

The Senators were ranked No. 15 in the East on Saturday.

Staios mentioned in his preamble for taking questions that he felt that the weight of expectations to make the playoffs again had affected his club’s performance through the first 39 games of the campaign.

“We talked about taking a step last year. We want to take another step this year, and we’re building towards wanting to be a contending team,” Staios said. “This is certainly part of the process, but expectations are different. Coming into this year, we’re two points better than we were at this point last year.

“So do we want to be do we want to be better than that? Of course, we’re always striving to be better. But I watch our team, and I look at it objectively, there’s a lot to like about the way we’ve been playing.”

But every team has a window of opportunity, and many believe the Senators are in that spot right now. Captain Brady Tkachuk’s contract expires at the end of the 2027-28 campaign, and high-scoring winger Drake Batherson will be an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2027.

Defenceman Thomas Chabot is three years away from UFA status as well.

The clock is ticking, but Staios says he can’t rush the process. Tkachuk, Chabot, Batherson, Tim Stutzle, Jake Sanderson, Dylan Cozens and Shane Pinto will be relied upon to take this club to the next level.

“We’ll contend when we’re ready to contend, and I think that we’re continuing to build towards that,” said Staios. “Putting a timeline on when our contending window is …  We have a good young team that continues to develop.”

The parity of the Eastern Conference has made the race difficult.

“That puts a greater emphasis on each and every game,” Staios said. “The margins are tighter than they’ve ever been. We gotta be up for the challenge to be able to get through some of those areas and improve on our game.”

ON THE TRADE MARKET

We know Staios has been aggressive on the trade market because the Ottawa Citizen speaks with league executives every day. He has been trying to find a right-shot defenceman and depth at forward.

At this point, he hasn’t added goaltending to that list.

But Staios noted that with so many teams in the race, there are few sellers.

“With the standings being so tight, that puts another variable into how the conversations are going to go,” he said. “Typically, when you see a little bit more of a divide, you have teams that are looking to recoup some assets and move on.

“It’ll be interesting. There’s been lots of dialogue, even leading into the holiday freeze there, and there’d been some dialogue, but I sense that it’s a lot of teams are in the middle right now trying to continue to evaluate.”

We’ve also stated that teams are asking about top prospects Carter Yakemchuk and Logan Hensler, but the Senators aren’t interested in moving those two players. In fact, Staios stated that if Yakemchuk wasn’t injured, he likely would have been called up.

“We probably would have seen him by now … he’s continued to impress and round out his game in the AHL with Belleville,” Staios said.

The Senators don’t have much in the way of assets beyond those two players. We’re told teams have been talking to the Senators about defenceman Artem Zub, who has one year left at $4.6 million U.S. He doesn’t have any trade protection, so he’s a player we should keep an eye on.

I’m not saying Zub is being dealt, so there is no need to have anybody seek a denial for this, but we think that’s a name to keep an eye on.

Staios said the club is studying all its options.

“We’re looking at trades. You ask me, often, Are you active? We’re always active, and I think it goes for most general managers; we speak often on ways to continue to improve our team,” said Staios.

“But as far as the assets that we have at the right time, if it’s the right player, it’s just kind of too hard to really put a finger on what might go out for what’s out there.”

The Senators have gotten zero indication from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman that they’ll get the first-round pick back they will be forced to forfeit this spring as part of the punishment for a botched trade with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2022.

ON FINDING CONSISTENCY

That has been the biggest issue for the Senators through the first half of the season. They have made this a rollercoaster ride of sorts. They win one, lose three, win four, lose two and then get back to winning.

Basically, the Senators need to play .600 hockey in the final half of the year to make the playoffs. It’s not impossible and this group is quite capable of getting to the post-season, but the winning has to start now.

“We had a 2-7-2 stretch where we felt that we played really well and you’d hope that you get a few more points,” Staios said. “We can’t look back on it. We’ve got to continue to move forward. If we’re five points better right now, how much better do we feel about it?

“You’d hope again, over 82 games, that with a consistent effort, our group makes an improvement in some of those areas.”

ON THE COACHING STAFF

There was no need to give coach Travis Green a vote of confidence.

He’s in the second season of a four-year deal and got this club to the playoffs last spring. There is nothing wrong with the coaching, and this staff has a good grip on this dressing room.

“No issues with my coaching staff here,” Staios said. “Maybe the hardest, most cohesive group that I’ve seen. It’s impressive. I wish you guys could see the amount of work, the passion, the commitment, dedication, the understanding, the way Travis has included all the coaches. It’s as good as it gets, from what I’ve seen, and no issues.”

Staios was asked what message he would send to his players.

“Continue to stay with it, to be able to take that next step,” Staios said.
We feel like we’re close. But in this league, you cannot take that for granted at all. The emphasis is on every given night. There has to be improvement in some of the areas (he talked about), the margins are very tight, so make sure you’re prepared for every game.”

bgarrioch@postmedia.com

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