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Linus Ullmark - who does he remind you of and will he ever be a true #1?


matter2003

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With Ullmark likely being out for a while, I wanted to reflect on who he reminds you of as a potential goalie of the future.  Personally, I don't think he is going to be a number 1 goalie in the NHL, I think he will be a quality backup that can give you 25-30 games a year and play well enough to give your team a chance to win if the starter goes down for any length of time.

Looking at similarity scores for Ullmark on the Hockey Reference site, his top similarity scores are 2 ex-Sabre goalies:

Marty Biron and Darren Puppa. 

As soon as I saw Biron, that is who I thought of with him.  Biron came on as a young player and played really well for about 15 games in his first year when Miller was hurt and the Sabres were going on their runs...Ullmark came up early and played really well also, even though the Sabres were tanking and he didn't get a lot of W's, he was a respectable 8-10-2 in his first season.

That being said, with both players, that might have been the high-water mark for their careers.  They both kind of drifted and never really established themselves as legit #1 goalies in the NHL, but quality backups.  I think that is what Ullmark is ultimately destined for.  He lets in too many bad goals at bad times to be a number 1.

What are  your thoughts on who Ullmark reminds you of and if he can becomes a #1?

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28 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

Biron came on as a young player and played really well for about 15 games in his first year when Miller was hurt and the Sabres were going on their runs...

This is not what Marty Biron’s career looked like.

Biron is older than Miller and he started something like 240 games for Buffalo before Miller ever became the starter.  Biron didn’t come up as Miller’s backup.  Miller came up as Biron’s backup.

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1 minute ago, darksabre said:

Ullmark is an upgraded Robin Lehner and he's already a "true #1" in the sense that he can probably play 60 games a year for any team in this league.

I don't think he's going to be "elite", but he's good enough.

What?  How many goalies play 60 games per year?  5?  Less?

Ullmark has played alright.  He looks like a guy you could give 35-45 starts as part of a tandem.  

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2 minutes ago, Curt said:

What?  How many goalies play 60 games per year?  5?  Less?

Ullmark has played alright.  He looks like a guy you could give 35-45 starts as part of a tandem.  

Exactly. Right now today that’s exactly what he looks like. It would be nice to see him take another step and be a dominate #1. He doesn’t need to be elite at all. If he can get to “best year Miller had” status ... that’s enough. And I’m not derailing the thread to talk about Miller.

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26 minutes ago, darksabre said:

Ullmark is an upgraded Robin Lehner and he's already a "true #1" in the sense that he can probably play 60 games a year for any team in this league.

I don't think he's going to be "elite", but he's good enough.

 

Uhh, I don't think so. Lehner has posted far better raw numbers than Ullmark has.  Even his first 2 years here, he had save percentages of .924 and .920 and GAA's of 2.47 and 2.68 on REALLY bad tank teams which are both better than Ullmark's numbers this year.  The last 2 seasons he also posted .930 and .922 save percentages, which are both far better than Ullmark.

The only place Ullmark is an upgrade to Lehner is in shootouts, where for whatever reason Lehner is the worst goalie in NHL History

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Biron's the comparable.  Linus has the personality.  He was the clear backup but became the starter out of necessity, just like Marty.  He's good enough to be a starter in this league but likely will never be a top level starter, just like Marty.  At any given time, he's probably the 21st - 40th best goalie (aka an awesome backup but meh starter), just like Marty.  And he's expected to be supplanted by a kid after being the starter for a couple of years, again just like Marty.

Been saying for a while, Ullmark is a taller Biron with a Minnesota accent.

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15 hours ago, Curt said:

This is not what Marty Biron’s career looked like.

Biron is older than Miller and he started something like 240 games for Buffalo before Miller ever became the starter.  Biron didn’t come up as Miller’s backup.  Miller came up as Biron’s backup.

That's exactly what I thought when I was reading it, Marty was here before Miller, it's why Milllers still playing and Marty's been on the radio for the last few years....

 

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15 hours ago, Curt said:

What?  How many goalies play 60 games per year?  5?  Less?

Ullmark has played alright.  He looks like a guy you could give 35-45 starts as part of a tandem.  

Seeing as how they have played a little more then half the season, as of right now out of the 81 goalies who have played a game in the NHL this year, 3 goalies has played 40+ games (Anderson in TO, Price and Helleybuck), 18 have played 30+ games. I would say that atleast 10+ of these players, barring injuries will play close to 60 games. It happens alot when a team has someone entrenched in the starter position, the backup usually gets 15-20 games. But because of a lack of guys good enough to have the full time starter role, many teams are running tandems now with 2 good goalies instead of one really good one and one ok one.

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6 hours ago, apuszczalowski said:

Seeing as how they have played a little more then half the season, as of right now out of the 81 goalies who have played a game in the NHL this year, 3 goalies has played 40+ games (Anderson in TO, Price and Helleybuck), 18 have played 30+ games. I would say that atleast 10+ of these players, barring injuries will play close to 60 games. It happens alot when a team has someone entrenched in the starter position, the backup usually gets 15-20 games. But because of a lack of guys good enough to have the full time starter role, many teams are running tandems now with 2 good goalies instead of one really good one and one ok one.

The past 6 seasons, number of goalies with 60+ starts:  8, 11, 10, 11, 9, 8

Compared to 2008-2012:  13, 10, 13, 13, 13

And if you go back farther, the change gets more extreme, but hockey reference doesn’t list starts that far back, so I don’t have exact numbers.

So, it looks like it’s a bit more than I thought.  Generally around 9-10, not 5.  This season, most teams have 30-32 games remaining.  I doubt that any goalie will start more than 26-27 of those.  11 goalies have 35+ starts so far, so the end of season number this year will probably be in that 8-11 range again.

I guess it’s not as much as I thought, but there is a trend towards starting the starter fewer games and having a more even split between the starter-backup.  I don’t believe that this is due to a sudden shortage in talented goalies.  It’s because teams have figured out that their goalies actually perform better in games if they are used a little less.

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On 1/29/2020 at 10:32 AM, Taro T said:

Biron's the comparable.  Linus has the personality.  He was the clear backup but became the starter out of necessity, just like Marty.  He's good enough to be a starter in this league but likely will never be a top level starter, just like Marty.  At any given time, he's probably the 21st - 40th best goalie (aka an awesome backup but meh starter), just like Marty.  And he's expected to be supplanted by a kid after being the starter for a couple of years, again just like Marty.

Been saying for a while, Ullmark is a taller Biron with a Minnesota accent.

Marty replaced a legend.  Ullmark replaced... Hutton.

Marty was drafted to be a starter, taken mid-first round.  I don't remember the timeline exactly, but they either had no idea what Hasek was yet or they didn't know if he'd stick around.  Ullmark was a crap shoot draft pick.

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6 hours ago, Curt said:

The past 6 seasons, number of goalies with 60+ starts:  8, 11, 10, 11, 9, 8

Compared to 2008-2012:  13, 10, 13, 13, 13

And if you go back farther, the change gets more extreme, but hockey reference doesn’t list starts that far back, so I don’t have exact numbers.

So, it looks like it’s a bit more than I thought.  Generally around 9-10, not 5.  This season, most teams have 30-32 games remaining.  I doubt that any goalie will start more than 26-27 of those.  11 goalies have 35+ starts so far, so the end of season number this year will probably be in that 8-11 range again.

I guess it’s not as much as I thought, but there is a trend towards starting the starter fewer games and having a more even split between the starter-backup.  I don’t believe that this is due to a sudden shortage in talented goalies.  It’s because teams have figured out that their goalies actually perform better in games if they are used a little less.

I don't know looking at the list though, I think it is a lack of true #1 guys now. There haven't been alot of young guys coming up that can handle the workload.

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2 hours ago, shrader said:

Marty replaced a legend.  Ullmark replaced... Hutton.

Marty was drafted to be a starter, taken mid-first round.  I don't remember the timeline exactly, but they either had no idea what Hasek was yet or they didn't know if he'd stick around.  Ullmark was a crap shoot draft pick.

All goalie draft picks are crap shoots.  And in the 90's 1st rounders offer were as well. 

Considering he was drafted a few months after Muckler (lover of all things Euler) had just traded Fuhr away to cement Hasek's role as the #1, he wasn't brought in to supplant Hasek, he was brought in to back him up and then hopefully, possibly, eventually become the starter.  And he got forced into that role earlier than expected when Dom forced his way out.

And they were so certain they'd struck gold with Biron, they drafted Noronnen 2 years later in the 1st round.  Marty didn't get full time NHL duty until after Hasek's injury plagued '99-'00 season that he supplanted Roloson when given the opportunity after which Roloson walked.  And they took a flyer on Miller in '99 who supplanted both of the 1st rounders by the time THE lockout was over.

 

Ullmark was drafted when Miller was still riding strong.  Of course the pick was a crap shoot; as stated above, darn near all of them are.   The team originally hoped he'd be Miller's eventual backup and then expected him to be Lehner's.  When Robin went all PTSD on them, the expectation was a brief stay as Hutton's backup and then a short stint as good enough starter until ...  And now the team is hoping the crap shoot they took on Lukkonnen plans out and Linus gets re-relegated to back up role.  (Or even better Johansson turns to gold.)

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@Taro T maybe crap shoot wasn't the right word, but teams have very different expectations in mind when taking a goalie in the 1st round vs. in the 6th.  I'd have to imagine they're expecting an NHL guy (either starter or backup) out of that first round guy.  It's only a hope for a guy like Ullmark or that 5th rounder in Miller, but I doubt you'll ever hear any GM say they expect that guy to make it.

But regardless, it really doesn't mean all that much for the comparison being made, I'm mostly just thinking out loud on this one.  I can live with it, although it's a bit more positive on Ullmark than I'd be.

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14 minutes ago, shrader said:

@Taro T maybe crap shoot wasn't the right word, but teams have very different expectations in mind when taking a goalie in the 1st round vs. in the 6th.  I'd have to imagine they're expecting an NHL guy (either starter or backup) out of that first round guy.  It's only a hope for a guy like Ullmark or that 5th rounder in Miller, but I doubt you'll ever hear any GM say they expect that guy to make it.

But regardless, it really doesn't mean all that much for the comparison being made, I'm mostly just thinking out loud on this one. I can live with it, although it's a bit more positive on Ullmark than I'd be.

Fair enough.  But also, don't forget that, as to the bolded, the Sabres gave Vegas a 6th and left Carrier exposed to protect Ullmark 3 off-seasons ago.  So, though he was a crap shoot when drafted, by the time Vegas came in, he was at minimum projected to be in the NHL and with Lehner's erratic play viewed as the heir apparent in a best case. 

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