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I don’t think I’m telling out of school when I say that goalies are known to be interesting characters, and Ottawa Senators starting goalie Linus Ullmark has given us another example of this.

The former Vezina Trophy winner spoke to the media before his first game with the Senators after being traded by the Boston Bruins over the offseason.

He was asked how he felt about the season starting.  He had an interesting way of explaining how he was feeling ahead of the Sens’ season-opener against the reigning Stanley Cup champs, the Florida Panthers.

Cows being let out at the beginning of spring… now that’s the kind of strange analogy I like to hear from goaltenders. Just goofy stuff like that somehow makes no sense and all the sense at the same time.

That’s a good one, but how does it stack up against the GOAT of Goalie Goofiness, Ilya Bryzgalov’s greatest hits?

Who could forget the time he talked about the universe?

Or when he told the media that he was only afraid of one thing and that was “bear in the forest.”

Or that classic moment he announced that he wouldn’t be playing in the 2012 Winter Classic at Citizen’s Bank Park and needed to remember to pack his Thermos and enjoy the bench.

By the way, all of those clips came within three months of each other, and I think the Universe and Thermos clips were only like a week or two apart. What a run Bryz had in Philly… at least off the ice.)

Alright, Ullmark has a long way to go before he eclipses Bryzgalov on the Goalie Goofiness charts, but he got off to a hot start in Ottawa.

Possibly even hotter in net. The Senators got off to a great start this season with a 3-1 win over the Panthers, with Ullmark staying busy with 30 saves on 31 shots.

Better yet, he did it with a phenomenal new mask that pays homage to Senators greats Patrick Lalime and Dominik Hasek.