What should the Sabres and their fans expect to see out of goalie Linus Ullmark during the 2021 season?
The goalie position has been a glaring weak spot for the Buffalo Sabres every year since Ryan Miller left town, which was in 2013. It has seemed like the Sabres have been cycling through goalies at a very rapid pace since then. Buffalo is hoping to get a little more consistency from their goalies in 2021.
Out of the three goalies to start games for the Sabres last season, Linus Ullmark started the most games in goal. In 34 games played, Ullmark went 17-14-3, which was the best record of the three goalies. Posting a .915 save percentage and a 2.69 goals against average, he led the Sabres in both of these categories in the 2019-2020 season.
With multiple big-name goalies hitting free agency this past offseason, it seemed likely that the Sabres would try and land one of them to be the goaltender for the 2021 season. But Buffalo ended up with no one new and will enter the season with the same goalies as they had last season.
If the 2019-2020 season is any indication, although not official yet, the Sabres will likely roll with Ullmark as their opening day starter. Over the past two seasons, Linus has played in 71 games and he has improved a little bit from one season to the next. So the trend shows that he would improve a little more this season, which Buffalo could really use.
The Sabres added some quality pieces this offseason but focused mainly on the offensive side of the puck. It is never a bad idea to add offense, especially in a sport that a goal means so much, but the Buffalo defense was nothing to write home about last year.
Only one current Sabres defenseman that was with them last year finished the season with a positive plus/minus. That one player is Brandon Montour, who posted a plus 13. So we shouldn’t be expecting much more help from the defense than we saw last season.
But maybe with the new offensive weapons the Sabres added, they could take some of the pressure off Ullmark. If the Sabres could improve upon the 2.80 goals per game they posted last year, which ranked 21st in the league, it could lead to some better goalie play.
I think that a very realistic expectation for Ullmark is to post a .917 save percentage and a 2.60 goals against average in 2021. This would be a small improvement from his 2019-2020 season stats, but an improvement none the less. And at 27 years old, he is young and still has plenty of time to develop.
I’m not expecting Ullmark to become an all-star by any stretch of the imagination, but I do expect him to continue to show improvement each season, including this one. I feel that 2021 will be the first season we see Ullmark as a “true” starter, as last year he only started in three more games than Carter Hutton, but he had significantly better stats than Hutton had last season.