There was some concern when Linus Ullmark was unable to return in Thursday’s contest against the New Jersey Devils. Today, we got the bad news. Ralph Krueger announced that Ullmark would be out at least a month, if not longer.
That’s a crushing blow to the team. The Sabres are already starting to fall behind in the East Division standings and being without their top goaltender for a long time is going to make it hard for them to even keep pace. Nevermind making up any ground in the standings. Especially when you combine that with Jack Eichel’s injury absence.
With the compact schedule, if Ullmark is out exactly one month, he would miss the Sabres’ next 16 games. That’s 28% of their schedule this season.
It’ll be Carter Hutton’s net for the foreseeable future. Kruger said that Jonas Johansson would come up from the taxi squad to backup Hutton.
When asked about looking outside the organization, Krueger said that they were just going to get through the weekend and then re-evaluate from there.