Substandard goaltending is not in itself noteworthy, nor even particularly unique this week. On Tuesday, New Jersey's Jacob Markström allowed nine goals on 24 shots, quite possibly the single worst goaltending performance in the NHL's modern era. On Wednesday, St. Louis's Jordan Binnington allowed seven goals, and was intended to be pulled, but his backup wasn't ready, and was later seen looming. Both incidents were fine examples of the exotic dangers of the scariest job in sports. So if you happened to peek at the scoreboard Thursday night and saw the Ottawa Senators had allowed eight goals in a loss to Colorado, you may have wondered: Sure, that's a lot of goals, but are mere goals really enough to command my limited attention? Did the Sens make it weird in any way? Oh, buddy.
Let's back up. The Senators thought they had solved their longstanding goaltending woes when they signed veteran netminder Linus Ullmark a couple years ago, but Ullmark had been having a rough season when on Dec. 27 Ottawa announced he would be granted a leave of absence for personal reasons. He's been back around the team this week, but there's no timeline for his return, and on Thursday afternoon the Sens moved him to non-roster status in order to be able to add another player. That's when the rumors started flying.
According to Some Guy On Twitter—a burner account that has since been deleted, and offered no sourcing—Ullmark had been caught cheating by his wife, and to defend himself basically told her all the guys do it. And according to this non-credible and non-believable rumor, Ullmark's wife had informed the wives and girlfriends of the rest of the Senators players and now everybody was mad and in trouble. Again: This didn't happen, and only a very stupid person would think it might have.
There's nothing new about infidelity rumors targeting players on struggling teams. It's almost a rite of passage. Fans get bored and creative, and concoct a simple explanation for an unhappy locker room, when the actual reasons for a losing team are multiple and boring. The Senators, sniffing the basement in the East, would've been a prime candidate for this tradition even before the unexplained absence of their top goalie. So perhaps that is why the rumor got the traction it did in Senators social media and message board circles. Usually these things take a few days to percolate up; this one needed only hours.
The thing is, though: If you weren't already a Senators Sicko, this probably hadn't appeared on your radar. Until GM Steve Staios put out that slightly histrionic statement about "the lowest forms of trolls and sick people who scour the internet," at which point you no doubt needed to find out what the hell he was talking about. I don't know if they consulted with Ullmark before releasing this statement, but if not, it's classic Streisand Effect material. Either way, it's classic Ottawa Senators.
So, to recap Ottawa's night in net, chronologically: They released a statement condemning sick internet people for spreading false rumors about their absent goalie. They started Leevi Meriläinen on the second night of a back-to-back and then pulled him after he gave up three goals on 12 shots. Mads Søgaard then allowed five goals on 16 shots in relief. They announced, between periods, they are signing castoff James Reimer. They brought Meriläinen back in to play the third period. Avalanche 8, Senators 2. In their ongoing battle against normalcy, however, the Sens are pitching a shutout.
