Is Anders Lindback's Resurgence Good or Bad for the Buffalo Sabres?

The Buffalo Sabres are a bad hockey team. Expected to be in the race for dead last in the NHL from the opening faceoff of the 2014-15 season, the team hasn’t disappointed. Along the way it has bled talent in a manner that made that last-place finish more likely. The team's decision midseason to trade away a pair of reasonably competent goaltenders and replace them with castoffs from other teams could be reasonably expected to solidify 30th.

Instead, one of those castoffs has been playing incredible hockey for the Sabres.

Anders Lindback is an unlikely champion for Buffalo. To be sure, the 26-year-old has a few things on his side: At 6’6”, he has ideal size for the goaltending position and came up through the Nashville Predators’ goaltending factory. He also had fine results in 30-odd games in Tennessee after coming over to North America from Sweden’s top league.

But Lindback’s career since leaving Nashville has largely been about his deficiencies.

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Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightning paid a heavy price in draft picks to secure Lindback’s rights from Nashville, thinking that the mammoth goaltender had star potential and the ability to nail down a position that had given the team difficulties for years. Instead, Lindback kneecapped the team, going 18-22-3 with a 0.897 save percentage over two seasons for the club. Halfway through Lindback’s first season, Yzerman tried again, once again moving pieces for a big, promising and untested goalie. Ben Bishop went 40-18-8 with a 0.923 save percentage over the two seasons in which he and Lindback shared the Lightning crease, and he has been a critical component in Tampa Bay’s emergence as an Eastern Conference powerhouse.

Still, Lindback was young and had played fewer than 50 games in Tampa Bay. The Dallas Stars decided that with an established No. 1 (Kari Lehtonen) in net they could afford to take a chance in the backup position on a player with some potential who might be a good rebound candidate. Lindback got 10 games, going 2-8-0 with a 0.875 save percentage and quickly wore out his welcome in Texas.

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In February, with the Stars still in the playoff conversation and with Lehtonen struggling through an up-and-down season, general manager Jim Nill decided he had seen enough. He pulled the trigger on a trade with the Sabres, sending Lindback and a conditional draft pick to Buffalo in exchange for pending free agent Jhonas Enroth. Nill’s comments on the day of the trade, duly reported by NHL.com, come across both as an explanation of what the team saw in Enroth and what it didn’t see in Lindback.

"Jhonas is an extremely instinctive, experienced goaltender and head coach Lindy Ruff has a familiarity with his game," Nill said. "Going down the stretch, where we have five more back-to-back situations, it was important for us to have a game-tested goaltender to help balance the workload."

It was one of two trades the Sabres made that day with an eye on the future rather than the present (a deal with Winnipeg centered on an injured Evander Kane being the other). With Enroth bound for free agency, and the capable Michal Neuvirth still with the team, adding a draft pick was a no-brainer. And when Buffalo shipped Neuvirth off to New York less than a month later for another draft pick/disappointing backup combination, it hardly mattered; the Sabres were well out of the playoff race and lousy goaltending over the remainder of the season wouldn’t hurt at all. Lindback was installed as starter with no expectation of success.

Lindback has defied expectations.

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There’s only so much any goalie can do for Buffalo, as evidenced by Lindback’s 1-4-2 record with the team. But he’s done his best, allowing just 19 goals on 270 shots (0.930 save percentage) since taking over as the team’s starting goalie. It’s still early, but if Lindback had managed that number over 50 games this season, only one starter in the league (Hart candidate Carey Price) would have a superior save percentage.

Lindback has given the Sabres a chance to win every night. He has a 0.910 save percentage or better in six of his seven starts for Buffalo. His lone win was a masterful effort; he turned aside 44 of 45 shots in a game against Boston, then stopped all five shooters in the shootout. The Sabres managed to pick up a third period power-play marker and a shootout goal from Tyler Ennis to squeak out a win.

This wasn’t a one-off from the Sabres, either; the team has 11 goals (not counting shootouts) over nine games in the month of March, so to record a win a goalie basically needs to hold the opposition to one goal through regulation and overtime and then win the shootout. If Buffalo is aiming for 30th and the most favourable odds in the draft lottery, it stands a pretty good chance even with Lindback playing exceptional hockey.

Even so, Lindback’s resurgence has to be a little worrying for a fanbase focused on Connor McDavid. The Sabres are only three points behind Arizona, and the Coyotes have one fewer game left on the schedule and have lost six straight.

Buffalo plays Arizona twice in its next four games. It’s going to be very interesting to see if Lindback gets those starts.  

News and statistics courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com and NHL.com. 

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.