Ottawa Senators Sign Joonas Korpisalo to 5-Year Deal With $4.0M AAV
Cam Talbot also went to Los Angeles, which is hilarious.
After signing RFAs Erik Brännström and Jacob Bernard-Docker, the Ottawa Senators have bolstered their goaltending with a fairly big name, signing Joonas Korpisalo to a five-year contract worth $4M annually.
Roster update: The #Sens have agreed to terms on a five-year ($4M AAV) contract with goaltender Joonas Korpisalo.
— Sens Communications (@Media_Sens) July 1, 2023
The breakdown is as follows $4M in 2023-24, $5M in 2024-25, $4.5M in 2025-26, $3.5M in 2026-27 and $3M in 2027-28. pic.twitter.com/bP1gUkleEZ
The 29-year-old Finn took part in 39 regular-season games last season with the Columbus Blue Jackets (.913 SV% in 28 games) and Los Angeles Kings (.921 SV% in 11) – it's good to see he was able to stop pucks in front of one of the best defensive teams in the league, as well as one of the worst.
We can expect Korpisalo to be the Sens' number-one goalie to start the 2023-24 season, but I personally am not ruling out Forsberg to potentially start around half of the team's games. This appears to be a legitimate goaltending tandem, something the Senators haven't had since Craig Anderson and Mike Condon in 2016-17. Also, Mads Søgaard is now freely able to develop for another year in Belleville, on standby in case of injury.
With 8 forwards, 6 defencemen, and 2 goalies under contract, Ottawa now has just over $10.2M in cap space, with Alex DeBrincat and Shane Pinto being the remaining key RFAs.
