The Ottawa Senators are fully in the playoff hunt this season, and one area of their roster that could be improved is their goaltending. While Linus Ullmark is the team’s best starter since Craig Anderson, rookie backup Leevi Merilainen is largely unproven. Aside from a 12-game stretch where he looked fantastic, it’s unclear how he’ll fare as a full-time NHL backup. If Ottawa wants to push for the Stanley Cup, then a veteran backup might be worth considering.
One option put forth by The Hockey Writers’ Paul Quinney is Carter Hart, who, as of Oct. 15, 2025, will be eligible to sign an NHL contract following a not guilty ruling after he and four other players were included in a sexual assault charge from an incident during the 2018 World Juniors in Buffalo. However, Ottawa should keep a wide berth of Hart, who promises to create more issues than solutions if he joins the Senators.
Hart Doesn’t Make Ottawa Better
At one point, Hart was considered the Philadelphia Flyers’ franchise goalie. As a rookie in 2018-19, he posted a .917 save percentage (SV%) over 31 starts, the greatest performance from a 20-year-old in franchise history. Over the next five seasons, although he generally had a losing record thanks to the team he was on, he only posted a SV% under .905 once. There’s no question that he’s a skilled goalie who can handle starting minutes.
However, Hart’s last game was on Jan. 20, 2024. By the time he’s eligible to return on Dec. 1, 2025, he will have been off the ice for nearly 23 months. While he may have done off-ice training during that time, he wasn’t involved in any competitive matchups; no practices, exhibition games, or training camps. There will be some rust, and it will take some time for him to get back up to NHL speed.
Lindy Ruff, currently the head coach of the Buffalo Sabres, realized the importance of having goalies play regularly. “There’s a number of games they need to play before they understand the NHL game completely,” he said back in 2024 while coaching the New Jersey Devils. “You look around the League at the starting goaltender, he often wasn’t drafted by that team. So it takes time, it takes incredible patience, but they need to play.”
Related: Ranking NHL Teams By Goaltenders
Merilainen, on the other hand, has played 87 games over the past two seasons in the ECHL, American Hockey League (AHL), and NHL. He was constantly jumping from team to team, and when he arrived in Ottawa on Dec. 21, 2025, to fill in for Ullmark, he was warm and ready to go. Over the next 12 games, he recorded three shutouts, a 1.99 goals-against average (GAA), and a .925 SV%. The last time Hart put up those kinds of numbers was in the 2020 Playoffs, where he had a .926 SV% and two shutouts over 14 games. That’s remarkably close to Merilainen’s run, implying that they may be of a similar calibre. So, even if Hart signs a league-minimum deal, he doesn’t offer anything more than Ottawa already has.
Character Concerns
When preparing for the 2025 NHL Draft, Senators general manager Steve Staios commented several times about looking for high character in his draft targets. “I think the size is a factor, as we see in our league,” he said, “but there are certainly some players that aren’t all that big that are effective as well. It’s something we look at, [but] it’s a little bit further down the list. We want to make sure we have character, hockey sense, and skill for these players.”
Hart certainly has skill and hockey sense, but the jury may still be out on his character. Throughout the eight-week trial, the primary issue was the complainant’s consent and whether a sexual assault had occurred. It was not debated whether or not the five players were involved with her, and Hart confirmed as much when he took the stand. When the trial closed and the five players were declared not guilty, the NHL released a response that read, “The allegations made in this case, even if not determined to have been criminal, were very disturbing and the behaviour at issue was unacceptable.”
In relying on both our own investigation, and the conclusions reached by Justice Carroccia in her opinion, and the players’ acquittal, the League has determined that the conduct at issue falls woefully short of the standards and values that the League and its Member Clubs expect and demand.
Hart and the other players took advantage of a situation where they had more power than the young woman. Not only were they young and physically fit, but they also outnumbered her five to one. Even if consent was willingly given, as the defence argued, her safety and well-being were at risk, and the five players benefited from that. To be involved in that type of situation shows a lack of character. According to the Senators’ public statements, that’s a type of player they don’t want in their dressing room.
Senators Don’t Need the PR Headache
The final nail in the coffin against Hart is the public relations nightmare it would create in Ottawa. Fans have been split on whether the five players should be allowed to return to the NHL, even after the league made its official statement in September. Quinney admitted as much in his article, writing, “It’s true that he was found not guilty of sexual assault, but he still faces judgment in the court of public opinion. Many fans, especially women, may find him unpalatable. That may be a risk the Senators feel they needn’t run.”
The NHL has been working for years to bring in more women and younger fans to hockey. In 2022, it was reported that there was a 26% increase in female viewership from 2016, and after the success of F1’s Drive to Survive, the NHL and Amazon created the Faceoff: Inside the NHL series to bring in new fans, with the second season to feature the Senators’ Brady Tkachuk.
The Senators are an easy team to cheer for. They’re young up-and-comers who have made significant strides in recent years, and Tkachuk is a charismatic leader who wears his heart on his sleeve and doesn’t shy away from the physical side. Adding Hart to that group would make them a much tougher sell, and after dealing with the controversial suspension to Shane Pinto for gambling and the ridiculous situation with former GM Pierre Dorion and Evgenii Dadonov, they likely don’t want yet another potential PR disaster. Thankfully, none of this looks like it will be an issue, as Hart has indicated he doesn’t want to sign in Canada and distance himself from the trial and the controversy.
In the end, the risk of adding Hart doesn’t outweigh the benefits. His best performances in the NHL aren’t better than Merilainen’s. The NHL has condemned the five players involved as having low character, and trying to convince a passionate fanbase that Hart won’t be an issue will instantly divide and weaken their core support. It’s best to steer clear and let him continue his career elsewhere.
