Welcome to LWOS’ Summer Hockey Series, Best of the Rest. Plenty of sites do a version of a 30 greats in 30 days series, but this year we are doing something a little bit different. We want to look at the best player from each team who is not in the Hockey Hall Of Fame. In order to do this there are some rules. First the player must have been a significant part of this franchise (franchises include their time in a previous city… see Winnipeg/Atlanta) and must be retired for at least 3 years, making them Hall of Fame eligible. To see all the articles in the series, check out the homepage here.
The modern iteration of the Ottawa Senators (the only version of the team we’ll be looking at for this series) hasn’t been around long enough to have much impact on the Hockey Hall of Fame. Former coach Roger Neilsen was deservedly inducted in 2002, but his tenure with the club lasted only a couple of seasons. Former goaltender Dominik Hasek is also in the Hall but, despite one very solid (and injury-shortened) season between the pipes in Ottawa, his greatest NHL contributions lie elsewhere. However, there is another goalie that made an even greater impact for the Sens.
From Peter Sidorkiewicz, to Damian Rhodes, and Ron Tugnutt, to Ray Emery, Brian Elliott and now Craig Anderson and Robin Lehner, Ottawa, for the most part, has been known as a “goalie graveyard”. This notorious list even includes the wonders of Tom Barrasso, and Martin Gerber. Finding a true number-one, elite goaltender in Ottawa has been difficult for the most of the franchise’s history. Through all of these netminders that played in the nation’s capital, there is one name that stands out which most Senators fans remember, Patrick Lalime.
Best of the Rest: Patrick Lalime
On June 18, 1999, the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim traded Lalime to the Ottawa Senators for Ted Donato and Antti-Jussi Niemi. This welcomed Lalime to start the 1999-2000 NHL season, his sophomore campaign, (albeit three years removed from a solid rookie season in Pittsburgh), as a Senator, sharing duties in net of the aforementioned Tugnutt. Right from the get-go, Lalime started his career in Ottawa with a 3-0 shutout over the Philadelphia Flyers. He ended his first season on the club with a 19-14-3 record, a GAA of 2.33 and SV% of .903
In the 2000-01 season, the Senators then decided to give Lalime the starting role in goal. He missed 10 games that season due to an MCL injury, but was named NHL player of the week twice, putting up a 36-19-5 record, a 2.35 GAA, and a SV% of .914, while helping Ottawa succeed in clinching the Northeast Division title. The Senators would meet their rivals, the Toronto Maple Leafs, that year in the first round and, despite Lalime putting up a decent GAA of 2.35, the Senators were eliminated in four games.
2001-02 was a memorable season for Sens fans, especially those who followed Lalime. He finished 2nd in the league with seven shutouts, set a club record with a shutout streak of 149:41 from October 23rd to November 10th, and helped his club clinch a playoff spot, finishing 7th in the east. Despite all that success, Lalime himself put up a not as lustrous statistics during the regular season as the previous year, finishing with 27-24-8 record, a mere .903 SV% and a GAA of 2.48.
However, come post-season, Lalime would once again shine, with the Senators being the underdogs and facing the 2nd best in the East, the Flyers. The Senators were able to prevail in winning their first playoff series in front of Lalime in 5 games, while Patrick himself only allowed 2 goals in the entirety of the series and put up 0.40 GAA. In the next round the Senators were defeated in 7 games, but Lalime finished the post-season strong, racking up 7 wins, a .946 SV% and a 1.39 GAA in 12 games.
Lalime’s success carried over through to the 2002-03 season. The Senators ended up winning their first President’s Trophy, with Lalime setting franchise records with 39 wins and 8 shutouts, records that still stand today. During this season, Lalime made his first and only appearance as a NHL All-Star. He also broke his own shutout streak record with 184:06. He finished the year with a 39-20-7 record, and he capped it off with a 2.16 GAA and a .911 SV%. It remains one of the finest seasons by a goaltender in Senators history.
After the end of that remarkable regular season, the Senators were heading into the playoffs as a favorite and a possible Cup contender. Lalime led the Senators to defeat the New York Islanders in round one and then the Flyers in round two, to bring the team to it’s first Eastern Conference final, only to lose to the eventual Stanley Cup Champions of that year, the New Jersey Devils, in seven games. Lalime finished with a 11-7 record in the post-season while marking up a .924 SV% and a 1.82 GAA.
By this time, Lalime was a fan favorite in Ottawa (they even named a street after him) and it looked like the woes of finding a number-one elite goaltender were over. This seemed true until the following 2003-04 season.
With expectations high after a terrific season for the Senators, Lalime’s success seemed to have dwindled away. With only putting up a 25-23-7 record and a fairly low SV% of .903, the Senators went into the playoffs not nearly as heavy favorites as compared to their season prior. They finished 5th in the East and were up to face their ‘Battle of Ontario’ rivals from Toronto once again in the first round of the post-season.
With the series tied at three games apiece, and with the Senators recently losing three playoff series’ before at the hands of the Maple Leafs, the upcoming game seven was almost as big as the one in 2002-03 versus the Devils. Lalime started the game by allowing two very soft goals to Joe Nieuwendyk and was pulled at the end of the first period with the Senators being down 3-0. The Senators ended up losing the game 4-1 and the series with it. The days of Patrick Lalime in Ottawa were coming to an end.
With the Senators organization and fans alike extremely frustrated with Lalime’s lack of consistency that season, management went out and brought in high-profile goaltender Dominik Hasek via free agency. Hasek was set to be the new starting goaltender for Ottawa, which made management later trade Lalime away to the St.Louis Blues for a conditional 4th round pick.
Lalime would bounce from St. Louis to Chicago, and eventually to Buffalo before retiring following the 2010-11 season at the age of 36, though he would never again match his performance from his best days in Ottawa. He would retire with a career record of 200-174-48, a career GAA of 2.58 and a SV% of .905 to go along with 35 shutouts in 444 games. He would never win a championship, nor would Lalime ever win an individual NHL award, though he did appear in one NHL all-star game, and was on the NHL All-Rookie team in 1996-97.
Lalime had some of, if not the very best, success as a goaltender in Ottawa before being axed for a veteran. He played a major role in bringing the Senators to the post-season, starting four times in his five seasons with the club and helping them win their first (and only) President’s Trophy. He still hold many Senators goaltending records, including most games played (283), most wins (146), most saves (6283) most shutouts (30), lowest GAA (2.32) and is second behind only Anderson in SV% (.908). All in all, throughout this notorious graveyard of goalies, Patrick Lalime was one of the best of the rest for the Ottawa Senators.
For the latest sports injury news, check out our friends at Sports Injury Alert.
Thanks for reading! Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter – @M4TR1X2. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport – and “liking” our Facebook page.
Main Photo:
