Ottawa Senators Top 25 Under 25 2024, #14: Leevi Meriläinen

#14: Leevi Meriläinen

Reader Rank: 14, Last Year: 14

If you've spent any amount of time following the Ottawa Senators over the past few years then you probably already knew you would see Leevi Meriläinen sandwiched in somewhere between a certain yet-unranked Danish netminder and the greener tandem of Kevin Reidler/Vladimir Nikitin. The departure of Kevin Mandolese to Colorado makes Meriläinen's course for this upcoming season a lot clearer, especially with the professional tandem in Ottawa also sorted out, short-term. Looking at the rankings and the fact that Meriläinen stood out as one of the only players we all agreed upon, I get the impression that Meriläinen just needs to keep chugging along for another year in Belleville, trying to improve his save percentage a bit if he can; rinse and repeat next year.

Meriläinen has long gotten praise from outlets like ours for his athleticism and sound fundamentals. He does a lot of the things you like to see from a young goaltender. He doesn't make a lot of Hail Mary saves per se — possibly because he doesn't have to. He just has good, fluid movement in the crease and he squares up well to the play. And while he doesn't have the absurd height advantage that some of Ottawa's other young goalies possess, Meriläinen still plays with confidence and does a good job of staying on top of the crease to use his frame and force the hand of the shooter:

And even when Belleville's defence does go full fire-drill, Meriläinen manages not only to confidently challenge the initial chance, he also patiently recovers and uses his sound footwork to get into position for those subsequent shot attempts without ever really looking panicked:

Meriläinen seems to play the cerebral part of the game well, as he tracks the puck pretty consistently, reads the play as it develops, and anticipates the location of the next attempt. In his last start of the regular season, Meriläinen made 39 shots to squeeze a narrow 2-1 victory for Belleville that got them into the postseason despite a lot of blown coverage from the BSens:

I also found Meriläinen does a pretty good job of managing loose pucks and rebounds based on the video available. He still gives up some decent secondary chances and I found for the most part, Meriläinen does a good job of staying with the play:

You can see a bit more of his rebound management here. When talking about Meriläinen and his sound fundamental play, that includes his ability to seal off the posts and cover the lower part of the net, forcing opponents to try lifting the puck from in close:

Meriläinen does seem to struggle a bit tracking point shots and managing screens. If he has a scouting report against him, I imagine opposing teams would try to exploit his glove side where his reaction could probably stand to improve a bit. Obviously if Meriläinen had already put everything together, we would see him higher on this list, so he still has some work to do.

Unlike other goaltenders in the system who intrigue scouts with their frames, Meriläinen has much more of a traditional set of tools. He does every technical thing pretty well without tipping the scales in any one category. I like this penalty kill sequence as an indicator of Meriläinen's clean, structured approach. Leevi doesn't really do anything eye-popping but he makes good decisions and dictates the play instead of waiting for the shooters and reacting.

Since Pierre Dorion went off the board selecting Meriläinen in the third round of a franchise-altering draft in 2020, the Finnish prospect has had his up and down seasons on both sides of the Atlantic, highlighted with a 2022-23 campaign when Meriläinen had an all-star season in Finland, and made both his AHL and NHL debuts in the spring. This past season saw Meriläinen's save percentage regress a little bit in his first full season the AHL, and competing with Mandolese for icetime, Meriläinen also spent some time toiling with ECHL Allen. Everything up to this point pretty much tracks with Meriläinen's stability in our rankings and our aggregate assessment of his future value to the organization.