Buffalo Sabres Players: Chad Johnson Is A Great Backup Goalie

Since the days of the tandem starter-backup pairing of Ryan Miller and Martin Biron, the Buffalo Sabres have struggled to find a top end backup goaltender that would be able to support the starter on a consistent basis. Even though they had Patrick Lalime and Ty Conklin for brief stints, they never really stayed long enough to make an impression.

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Last season, Tim Murray made a trade with the New York Islanders that brought in 28 year old goaltender Chad Johnson. Johnson who has only had a career as a backup goaltender was one of the better pickups Murray made, and he is the exact kind of player that will be a great supporter to starter Robin Lehner.

Johnson has been a backup to some of the top tier goaltenders in the league, including Henrik Lundqvist and Tuukka Rask, and he has had a good level of success under them. He is the kind of goaltender that will challenge his starter to bee just good enough to be in front of him in the depth chart, but is no real threat to his starting role. It gives his starter a challenge, but never will truly take his place. For Lehner on the Sabres, this will be key as he is used to being questioned as the starter by a goalie above him (which were Andrew Hammond and Craig Anderson in Ottawa).

What Johnson brings to the table is a very capable level of skill to step in and win games when he is giving his starter some relief. He is not an elite goalie in any way, but he is still a reliable one. In order for Buffalo to do better this season, they cannot expect their starter to be the only one winning games like in the past. Chad Johnson can carry a workload of about 17-20 games and win more than half of them. That will take the workload off of Lehner and allow him to be healthy and ready to play.

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Johnson can do what is needed of him. his career record is 28-14-7 (with three shutouts) and he has a career total of .914 SV% and 2.41GAA. Those numbers are as good as anyone can expect from a backup goalie. Being in the prime age of his career, Johnson will have many more games to play. He is only under contract for one more year in Buffalo, but he honestly should be kept around for another two year after this year.

A great supporting goaltender is hard to come by these days. The ones that usually are better in the league are the young goalies challenging for the starting role. They only last about two years before they want out of their current team in pursuit of a starting role somewhere else (look how well that worked out for Jonathan Bernier from LA to Toronto, Vesa Toskala from San Jose to Toronto, Ilya Bryzgalov from Phoenix to Philadelphia). Johnson will only every be a backup goalie and he has the steady numbers to be reliable in many ways.

Fans should not be worried at all when Chad Johnson gets the call in net for Buffalo, because he can hold his own very well. In fact he will be a key element to Buffalo winning those bak to back games that show up so often n the season.

Next: Do The Sabres Need An Enforcer?

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