Breaking: Linus Ullmark was traded by the Boston Bruins to the Ottawa Senators for a four-year contract for $35 million.

Breaking: Linus Ullmark was traded by the Boston Bruins to the Ottawa Senators for a four-year contract for $35 million.

The Ottawa Senators have to make a goaltender improvement ASAP, and Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports that the team is still pursuing a trade with the Boston Bruins for Linus Ullmark.

“While league sources told Postmedia earlier in the day the Senators had already had stepped up their efforts to acquire goaltender Linus Ullmark from the Boston Bruins, Ottawa may be the last serious team in the mix,” Garrioch wrote in an article that was released on Wednesday.

Garrioch subsequently wrote: “League sources say the Senators have circled back to the Bruins to see if there’s a fit to acquire Ullmark to steady the club’s struggling net and those talks have intensified.” Additionally, he mentioned that Senator Steve Staios, the general manager and president of hockey operations, “has been making a hard push to try to acquire Ullmark.”

The Senators’.884 save percentage from the previous campaign placed them 31st out of 32 clubs. They were 28th in goals against as well. Ottawa was a popular preseason selection to win the Eastern Conference and make the playoffs, but poor goaltending destroyed any chance the team had of making it. The Senators ended up in seventh place in the Atlantic Division with 78 points as a result.

Perhaps the best goalkeeper available for the Senators to seek in a trade is Ullmark. Goalie transactions were active on Wednesday, as the Washington Capitals sent Darcy Kuemper to the Los Angeles Kings and the Calgary Flames moved Jacob Markstrom to the New Jersey Devils.

By dealing Ullmark, the Bruins may be able to free up as much as $5 million in salary contract space, enabling rising star Jeremy Swayman to assume the mantle as Boston’s best goalkeeper. Swayman was a standout player during the 2024 Boston Bruins playoff run, which came to an end in the second round with a Game 6 loss to the Florida Panthers.

With a $5 million cap cost, Ullmark’s deal has one more year left on it. In the summer of 2025, he will be able to sign free agency contracts without restrictions. According to CapFriendly, he has a no-trade provision in his current deal that gives him the power to refuse a transfer to 16 clubs.

Thus, even in the unlikely event that the Bruins and Senators could come to an agreement including Ullmark, the deal would only proceed if Ottawa is not included on the veteran goalie’s no-trade list.