My golfing buddies and I always enjoy a frosty pint or two after our weekly round at Pakenham Highlands Golf Club in the beautiful Ottawa Valley. After debating how some of us “woulda’, coulda’ and shoulda’” scored better, the discussion often turns to solving the world’s problems. This week, there was no more pressing problem than the Ottawa Senators’ goaltending situation.
The boys all agreed that the Senators’ president of hockey operations and general manager (GM), Steve Staios, had to solve his team’s abysmal puck-stopping. That is, except for one of my pals, who took everyone aback by arguing that Staios already had a solution. His name is Joonas Korpisalo.
Arguably a better hockey pundit than a golfer, my mate won me over to his way of thinking. Korpisalo could not only be the long-sought-after solution to the Senators’ problems in goal, but he may have to be depending on how this summer’s player swaps go for Staios.
I can already hear the guffaws at the idea that Korpisalo can be salvaged and become at least a serviceable minder of the twine next season. But hear me out.
Is Korpisalo What His 2023-24 Season Says He Is?
First, let’s get Korpisalo’s numbers this season out of the way. I’m not going to defend the indefensible, and neither will Korpisalo. As he explained back in Feb., “I need to be better. It’s nothing crazier than that. I need more wins. It’s as simple as that” (from Bruce Garrioch, “SNAPSHOTS: Joonas Korpisalo knows he has to be better for the Senators,” Ottawa Sun, 2/29/24).
Related: Senators Could Regret Joonas Korpisalo Contract
Just to show that Korpisalo knows what he speaks, let’s look at what the statistics say about Ottawa’s goaltending this season. Perhaps the most telling stat is the number of games in which the team’s goalies gave up four or more goals. You won’t win in this league if you do that too often – and it’s something the Senators did in 37 of the 82 games they played this season. Put another way, almost half the time opposing teams laced up against the Senators this season, they knew they’d face the proverbial sieve between the pipes, whether that was Korpisalo or Anton Forsberg.
In Moneypuck’s ranking of NHL goalies in the 2023-24 season, Korpisalo placed 97th. Ranked as a duo, Korpisalo and Forsberg are 31st in the league according to the venerable publication for which I write – The Hockey Writers.
Korpisalo’s save percentage this season was just…
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