The truth about the fall season doesn’t burn in the fire either: the Ottawa Senators ran aground in a really ugly way. The young team was finally supposed to seriously compete for a place in the playoffs, but the ugly truth hit the face quickly. The undisciplined team was not able to play at the level that is required to reach the playoffs. Coming into 2024, Ottawa was the weakest team in the entire Eastern Conference.
The situation was – and still is – a disaster.
And the chaos is not limited to the rink side. Along with all the game chaos, the club has changed owners, GM and head coach. Earlier in the fall, the NHL appointed a forward Shane Pinto Banned for 41 matches for violating the betting rules. There have been enough twists and turns like in The Beautiful and the Bold.
– After all, all kinds of things have fit into these 40 games, the team’s Finnish goalkeeper Joonas Korpisalo laughs at Urheilu.
Alienee Michael Andlauer will hardly ever forget the events of autumn. After buying the club, he was the first to hear about Pinto’s gambling violation investigation. Moments later, the NHL announced the club would lose a first-round draft pick in 2024, 2025 or 2026 for failing to tell Vegas the forward Yevgeny Dadonov of the clauses found in the contract in connection with the player trade. Ottawa traded Dadonov to Vegas in 2021, from where he was further traded to Anaheim.
Ottawa did not tell Vegas that there was a clause in the Russian’s contract, based on which the player could name ten clubs to which he should not be traded. Anaheim was on that list.
Moments later, Andlauer gave the shoe to GM To Pierre Dorion. A long time later, the head coach was shown the door For DJ Smith. Now the head coach, presumably the acting one, is operated by someone who has experienced everything Jacques Martin. The club hired him as GM By Steve Staios.
Korpisalo says the turmoil was intense and the dynamics were shaken.
– Yes, I have gone upstairs a couple of times to tell the players that they could put things together. Finally, changing the coach was a message to the guys that now things have to change. It’s up to the players to get things on track, maybe the understanding of that was lost before. When the owner or GM changes, it doesn’t really come to mind, but a new coach always brings a new way of playing and a lot of small new things. It shakes of course.
The points were not stolen
If Ottawa crashed as a collective, the same can be said about Korpisalo’s game personally. The goalkeeper from Helsinki, who excelled in Columbus and Los Angeles last season, did not get on top of his game in the new environment in the fall. Statistically, Korpisalo played the weakest hockey of his NHL career in the fall and, for example, the ratio of goals saved to goals expected is more than 12 hits even in this bitterly cold weather. The reading is the weakest in the entire league, according to the Moneypuck website.
A year ago, Korpisalo had a plus of almost 13 goals, ranking 11th in the entire series.
– Of course, I didn’t think that the season would start like that. I couldn’t live up to expectations.
However, Korpisalo did not start touching the panic button, but put his head down and focused on training. This top hockey player of the second generation knew that the best medicine was experience. During his eight years in Columbus, Korpisalo had time to see the hills and valleys of the NHL world many times, and the importance of the experience brought by it must not be insignificant.
– Those years and all the difficulties have marinated. When it’s hard, you just have to dig out the next level in yourself. You also have to know how to be honest with yourself about what the game looks like. Am I playing to my strengths or do I need to change something? Through experience, I can look at things honestly and trust my own doing. Yes, the know-how is there and sometimes there are no wins even with a good game. When you have experienced difficulties before, you know how to use the lessons learned from them, Korpisalo assures.
And in the name of honesty, Korpisalo didn’t get any kind of support from the team in the autumn season. Especially in the fall, Ottawa was undeniably one of the weakest teams in the entire series when it comes to the structures of the five-man game or defensive play in their own area.
– Nothing is ever up to one man. It must still be said that the goalkeeper can always play well, stand on his head and thereby steal points. Goalkeepers always have the opportunity to do that, and I wasn’t able to do that in the early season. There were no points. It is still also the case that when we play at our level as a collective, it is easier for everyone to succeed individually.
Peace can be heard from Korpisalo’s voice, even though there has been a storm around since October. Part of this may be influenced by the five-year contract with the club signed in the summer. Next season’s place is not dependent on individual games in December.
– Whether it brings peace, I can’t really say. The basic stress of everyday life never goes away. There’s always a lot at stake, whether it’s the first year or the last year of a contract. It won’t change for any reason. But of course it is also clear that the situation is good in the sense that there is no need to play for next year’s contract here and now, Korpisalo spins.
A bubble or a promise of something better?
After the dark autumn, the Senators have started to assemble their ranks and get results as well. Of the ten previous matches, the team has won six and lost only two in regular time. How can it be that at the same time Korpisalo’s statistics have been like from another reality. Korpisalo’s winning record in the previous nine matches is impressively recorded at 6-2-1. Only two and a half goals have been conceded per match.
As a team, for example, in terms of goal expectations, Ottawa is like a different team compared to the fall. While at the beginning of January, Ottawa had recorded 47 percent of the expected goals, for the previous 11 matches the reading is 55 percent. On the other hand, even during a good period, they have scored more than three and a half goals per game.
There is enough work land.
– We have a lot of players in the attacking direction. When the new coach came, he was the first to put the package together in his head. It’s been worked on now. What we are learning here is that if we spend less time on our own and get out of there cleanly, we will attack better and thus be able to play better with our strengths. We have put together a package and now we already know what to expect from our neighbor, Korpisalo assures.
It is still difficult to take Ottawa very seriously. There are 16 points to the playoff line, so practically the team’s season is over – it was already in January. Now it’s all about building a new culture and game identity for the upcoming season. However, feats made in no-stakes games rarely make big headlines.
The next time Ottawa will be measured for real will be in October, when the new season starts. The team is already working for that.
– Now it feels like the pieces are starting to fall apart. When you get the cornerstones of the game in place, the level doesn’t swing as much. If the cornerstones are in place, you can win matches even if the team is not having the best day. In the early season, we didn’t have that and there was no consistency in playing in our own area. Now we are going in a better direction, Korpisalo assures at the end.