PITTSBURGH — When Carter Hutton left with an injury early into the game against the New York Rangers on Monday, Dustin Tokarski entered his first NHL game in nearly four and a half years.
More issues for Don Granato, who still has not completed an entire week as the Sabres' interim head coach since Ralph Krueger's firing on Wednesday, continue to pile up - between the firing, a postponed game due to COVID-19 concerns, a growing winless streak, now at 14 games.
He can add goalie issues to the list. Granato said on Tuesday Hutton was sent back to Buffalo for further evaluation and will miss the Sabres three remaining games on their current road trip.
The 35-year-old had to be assisted off the ice after a collision early in the first period in the Sabres's 5-3 loss to the Rangers. Tokarski stopped 33 of 37 shots after taking over in net.
Hutton was splitting time between the pipes with Jonas Johansson, who was just traded to the Colorado Avalanche for a 2021 sixth round pick on Saturday, while the Sabres waited for Linus Ullmark to return from a lower body injury. Ullmark has been out since late February, but made the four-game road trip with the team to practice.
"Linus was in practice and went through the full 20-something minutes of drills and was good," Granato said after Tuesday morning's practice in Pittsburgh. "It started that process of him getting back integrated with the team. It’s going to take him a few days of that before he’s in any position or we’re in any position to make a decision of putting him back into the lineup.”
Although Granato said Ullmark will not be available yet at least for Wednesday night's game against the Penguins, teammates were optimistic about his work in Tuesday's practice.
Veteran forward Eric Staal said, "You don’t get anywhere in this league without great goaltending. From what I’ve seen of Linus, although it hasn’t been a lot of hockey since I’ve been here of him, but he’s a great goalie. Obviously, we missed him a lot. Missed him dearly. He was real solid for us, gave us a chance every time he was in the net and instills a lot of confidence in our team.
"When you’re missing that it’s difficult. It was good to see him in practice today taking shots from the guys and hopefully he keeps progressing so he can get back in there to help this group get in the win column."
Granato said Tokarski is expected to start on Wednesday in Pittsburgh, and will be backed up by Michael Houser, who the Sabres signed to a one-year contract on Friday.
