Ottawa Senators Deal with Linus Ullmark Injury Downing Bruins 4-1

The Ottawa Senators do have some unlucky outcomes with players, as we saw tonight versus the Boston Bruins. They handedly get a 4-0 lead by the second period of tonight’s action. However, a major damper was put on the game with the Linus Ullmark injury news at the timing of the second intermission. That in itself is unfortunate but compounded by the fact that they had even more bad injury news last game, as Jake Sanderson never appeared after the first period versus the Toronto Maple Leafs. Let’s discuss the impact of tonight’s injury to Ullmark versus the Bruins.

Ullmark was hoping for a strong season, one he would play 50 or 55 games for the Sens. An injury this early in the season, and all hopes that it doesn’t lead to any extended missed time. Surely if it did, unlike last year when the Sens were forced to ride Leevi Merilainen, general manager Steve Staios will pull the trigger on a trade early to get some help. In contrast to last season, when he almost left it too late before signing James Reimer out of retirement, essentially.

In a game like tonight’s for the Ottawa Senators, it just goes to show why they are the better team than the Boston Bruins, but more so in a ranking amongst the Atlantic Division teams in general. Yes, the Boston Bruins finished ahead of the Ottawa Senators in the standings last year. However, in the head-to-head series, it was dominated by the Ottawa Senators (3-0-1). But for the Sens, none other than Tim Stutzle has shown his star power, and having some in to tonight with his most goals against any one opponent (seven), his two goals and one assist, put his stamp on this game. But this game’s story has now shifted to the goaltending scenario.

There is some uncertainty of when the Linus Ullmark injury actually occurred. There was a collision with Bruins sniper JJ Peterka. Bruce Garrioch did post a Tweet that he was clearly slow to get up. So if you do re-watch the game, you might be able to tell when it occurred to help identify what it was.

Ullmark was pitching a shutout at the time he got pulled, having made 10 saves. That was after stopping 27 of 29 shots versus the Leafs in the game on Saturday night. Or a .949 save percentage.

Samuel Ersson did a fine job coming on in relief. It wasn’t all bad in the sense, given the back-to-back the Sens currently find themselves in, it was likely Ersson was going to get the call tomorrow against the Detroit Red Wings anyways. Ersson did fine to stop eight of nine shots.

Main Photo Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images