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I agree that the goaltending needs to be upgraded.  I think that Ullmark is a competent starter who is good enough to do the job on an otherwise good team.  He's not likely to be a Vezina finalist anytime soon, but can carry the load if the team has adequate defensive support and scoring (which the Sabres do not).  Hutton is a great locker room guy and has flashes, but is clearly not the answer.

I was at the game Saturday night in Arizona and sat very close to the Sabres net during the 2nd period.  Johansson is simply not ready for NHL duty.  While there were many defensive breakdowns that didn't help him, he was shaky at best.  One of the goals occurred because he cleared the puck right onto the Arizona player's stick, when no Sabre player was even close to the area.  Although he "only" gave up 4 goals (the last one was empty net), he was beaten many more times than that.  The goalposts were his friend.  He was beaten twice on a couple of the goals.  One went in, but bounced out quickly and would have been called a goal on replay review, but AZ put the rebound in so there was no need to review it.  On another one, Johansson was beaten, but the puck hit the post, came back out to the AZ player, who potted it on the 2nd attempt.  These were my observations live - perhaps those who saw it on TV and had the benefit of replays saw something different.

Sometimes young, inexperienced guys from the minors develop into quality NHL players and sometimes they don't.  I can't say whether Johannson will develop, but I can say that he isn't ready now.

Edited by msw2112
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