Ottawa Senators Top 25 Under 25 2024, #9: Mads Søgaard
The Dane has yet to cement himself as an NHL-caliber goalie, but his impressive play in the AHL has people hopeful for the future
Last Year: 8, Reader Rank: 8
Mads Søgaard has always been one of the most intriguing prospects in the Ottawa Senators organization because of one thing: his 6'7" height. He is an enormous goalie and has shown flashes of great potential, but he actually fell one spot in the rankings this year, going from eighth to ninth. As I'll get into later, he actually had his best AHL season to date, but he's failed to show anything at the NHL level.
Søgaard has always had a bit of a target on his back because the Senators traded a 2nd and a 3rd round pick in order to take him, which gives off the impression that Ottawa desperately wanted him. He regressed to a .908 SV% in his final WHL season and then played seven amazing AHL games in the Covid-shortened 2020-21 season. Over the past three seasons, he has played games in Belleville and Ottawa, with some mixed results.
His save percentages in the AHL have gone from .908% (35 GP) to .893% (22 GP) to .916% (32 GP), so it's hard to tell what his true talent level is there. His career AHL SV% sits at .908%, which is fine but could be better. I guess it's no surprise that he enjoyed much more success this past season considering this was the best team they've had during his tenure, so the team defense was seemingly better. That .916 SV% ranked tied for 10th in the league out of 48 qualified goalies, so that gives you a good sense of how much better he was this year. For reference, he was smack in the middle, 20th/40 goalies with his .908 SV% in 2021-22.
He did well in Belleville's six playoff games with a .910 SV% and was able to defeat the Toronto Marlies, but the B-Sens fell to the Cleveland Monsters in round two. While Søgaard's AHL career has been solid so far, his NHL results have not been there.
He has 27 NHL games to his name across three seasons and a paltry .874 SV% in that time. He played 19 games in 202-23 because of injuries to Cam Talbot and Anton Forsberg, and he definitely looked good at times as he even won Rookie of the Month in February 2023 as he went 4-0-1 with a .922 SV%. At that time, it was easy to get excited about him being ready to be a full-time NHLer. However, he immediately regressed as he didn't allow fewer than two goals in any of his remaining 13 games and allowed 4+ goals in eight of those games.
The expected goals against numbers weren't kind either, as his GSAx was -4.38, indicating that it wasn't just poor defense in front of him. This past season was even worse for him in the NHL, albeit in only six games. He had an .859 SV% and a truly horrific -9.36 GSAx. That means he allowed about 1.5 goals per game that he should have been stopping. That was the fifth-worst mark in the league despite GSAx being a cumulative stat. To call his time with Ottawa this year a disappointment would be a huge understatement.
According to Byron Bader's model, Søgaard's chances of becoming an NHLer are about a coin flip, and comparable goalies to him include some success stories like Roman Cechmanek, Pavel Francouz, Michael Leighton, Dan Cloutier, Anton Forsberg, and Fred Brathwaite:
It seems like Søgaard is still a young prospect, but the reality is he'll turn 24 in December. The good news is that goalies take longer to develop, and I'm not nearly at the point of giving up on him. He is signed to a two-way contract in 2024-25 and a one-way deal the following season, so it's clear the plan/hope is that he can be Linus Ullmark's backup in 2025-26, or potentially even this season if he takes the job away from Anton Forsberg. As with all goalies, I'm not confident what his future holds, but it's worth seeing what he can become because there is a big upside with him.
