Ottawa’s 7-2 loss to St. Louis was ugly, but it’s not the whole picture heading into Thursday’s matchup with the Islanders. Linus Ullmark, the Senators’ expected goalie, didn’t play in that defeat and has allowed just six goals across his last five appearances. New York brings a strong recent run from Ilya Sorokin, too. That makes the interesting question less about Ottawa shaking off one bad night and more about whether its stronger attack can create enough separation in a potentially tight goalie matchup.
Why Ottawa’s latest result needs context
The Senators were playing the second half of a back-to-back Tuesday, with Samuel Ersson in net, when St. Louis beat them 7-2. The loss ended a three-game winning streak and left Ottawa 5-2. It was a sharp departure from the Senators’ previous three games, when they allowed just four goals combined.
Ullmark’s last five appearances this season offer a better guide to the goaltending Ottawa hopes to get here. He stopped 94.8% of the shots he faced and allowed no more than two goals in any appearance. That stretch includes a 40-minute outing, but he’s been consistently strong across those appearances.
The DraftKings moneyline has Ottawa favored at -155, with the Islanders at +130. Our grades support the Senators’ stronger overall profile: we give their attack a B compared with New York’s D+, while Ottawa also holds a smaller defensive advantage, B+ to B. That gives Ottawa a meaningful matchup advantage, though backing the favorite at this price still means weighing the goalie at the other end.
Sorokin gives the Islanders a way to stay close
Sorokin has allowed nine goals across his last five appearances this season, including a shutout against New Jersey. His four-goal outing against Tampa Bay is the exception in that stretch; he allowed two or fewer in each of the other four.
New York also arrives with something to build on up front. Kyle Palmieri scored twice in Tuesday’s 3-2 win over Vancouver, including the third-period winner. The Islanders have alternated wins and losses through six games, so that result hasn’t yet turned into sustained momentum.
Our shot projections suggest a close volume matchup: roughly 28 shots on goal for each team. Ottawa’s advantage in our broader evaluation therefore isn’t accompanied by a forecast of substantially more shooting. For New York, keeping that volume close while getting another strong Sorokin performance is a credible route to making the favorite work.
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What matters at a total of 5.5
The expected goalies’ recent performances make the 5.5-goal total worth a closer look, especially after Ottawa’s nine-goal game Tuesday. Five of the Senators’ seven games this season finished under their respective sportsbook totals. New York’s six-game stretch, however, has split evenly between over and under—a useful counterweight to treating this as an automatic low-scoring matchup.
Special teams could also put those goalies under pressure: our projections call for about three power-play opportunities apiece. Those chances offer a route to scoring even if the overall shot counts stay close, but neither team has a large projected advantage in opportunities. At 5.5, the goalies’ recent form is a meaningful part of the scoring outlook, not the whole case.
Ottawa has the stronger all-around profile, but Tuesday’s blowout shouldn’t define the analysis—and neither should it erase the challenge Sorokin presents. With little projected separation in shots, the Senators’ attacking advantage has to show up in what they do with those chances rather than simply in how many they generate. That makes Sorokin’s resistance, alongside Ullmark’s recent steadiness, more useful to evaluating the favorite’s price and the 5.5 total than a simple bounce-back narrative.
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