“I’m very excited. I’m very excited to get another year here in Buffalo to start with,” said an enthusiastic Robin Lehner on "The Instigators" radio show on Tuesday morning.
“I’m happy here. I like this team a lot. I think there’s a lot of potential and I want to be a part of it. So that’s very exciting to be a part of one more year of this team.”
Lehner acknowledges that this upcoming season will be a serious show-don't-tell proposition. If he leads the Sabres to their first playoff berth since 2011, Jason Botterill and Phil Housley will be inclined to want to re-sign him to a long term contract extension to stay in Buffalo.
If he fails to lead his team to the playoffs, or, if he gets injured again, a long term contract extension may not be in the cards for Lehner.
Either way, the Big Swede understands that the stakes are high. He says he is ready for the challenge.
“There’s pressure in this league. There’s always been pressure,” Lehner said. “I just want to keep getting better. Keep getting better and try to have a real good season this year.
“My first year was obviously here was a little bit of a problem with my injury I had there, but I feel like ever since I got to Buffalo, every game I got to play I’ve been trying to see as many pucks as possible. I’ve been a solid maybe over 92% since I got to Buffalo. I feel like I can keep proving I’m a good goalie.”
Lehner is betting on himself to have a stellar season in 2017-18. Botterill has performed augmentation surgery on the Buffalo blue line. Lehner will now be supported by six legit strong NhLndenseman rather on a nightly basis. In the past two months, Botterill has added three new defenseman to protect the fort in Marco Scandella, Nathan a Beaulieu, and Viktor Antipin who will join Rasmus Ristolainen, Jake McCabe, Zach Bogosian, Josh Gorges, Brendan Guhle and Justin Falk.
Factor in Housley's five man attack strategy, and Lehner will be seeing far less shots and chances against this season than ever before in Buffalo.
“At the end of the day, I think my decision the whole time is I want to be in Buffalo,” he said. “I like this city a lot. I want to keep building with this team. I’m happy I got another year here. One year or long term would be nice. One year is fine too.
“I’m confident in my abilities to be a good goalie in this league. If it’s one year on paper, that’s fine. I’m obviously a restricted free agent one more year after this. I’ll take it year-by-year, try to focus on the season, and we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what happens next year.”
Lehner was one of the loudest, most passionate voices in the Buffalo room last season. There were many a night after a loss when Lehner would call out his teammates for not caring enlightened to play a full sixty minute contest. Lehner was right. The Sabres had far too many passengers and not enough committed workers last season.
“It was a big disappointment last year,” said. “I think it’s taken quite a bit of time this offseason to let that sink in, see what’s gone wrong, try to look in the mirror a little bit. I think a lot of players and the team have tried to do that.
“I had a good talk with Jason (Botterill) a little while ago. I talked to Phil (Housley) too. I’m very excited for the direction the team is going. It’s obviously a new coach. He seems very defensive-minded. The first time he reached out to me it was all we kind of talked about, and little bits of certain situations. I’m kind of excited about getting that going. There’s been some new additions. Obviously some good players and good people have left the organization too".
One such departure is captain Brian Gionta, who along with a Lehner, provider support to the leadership group of Jack Eichel, Ryan O'Reilly, Rasmus Ristolainen, Jake McCabe, Zach Bogosian and Josh Gorges.
Another key departure is the man who drafted Lehner into the NHL and won a Vanderbilt Cup with him in Bingo. Tim Murray traded A first round draft choice to acquire "Lenny".
Lehner doesn't have lingering hard feelings over the firing of Murray.
“I’m excited for the upcoming year here and we’ll see what happens.”
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Buffalo Sabres GM Jason Botterill has re-signed Sabres goalie Robin Lehner to a one-year contract worth $4 million AAV.
In my opinion, this is a fair number for a Lehner, who turned 26 yesterday, and was scheduled to have his case heard by the NHL arbitrator. Lehner earned $2.25M AAV last season and was qualified as an RFA at $3.15 AAV.
I feel that Lehner could have gotten $4M plus AAV from the arbitrator based on his years of service and his above average save percentage and goals against average. Getting the big Swede locked up to a cap friendly number for this season is a coup for Botterill.
The Lehner signing now allows Botterill to test drive Lehner before he buys him. In other words, Botterill will have a full season to judge for himself with his own two eyes that Lehner is the number one goalie moving forward.
Tim Murray brought Lehner to Buffalo. It's now up to Lehner to prove with his play that he is in fact the hot goalie that Botterill should give his crease to for now and the future.
Since replacing Murray, Botterill has fortified his goaltending cluster by re-signing Linus Ullmark, who is going to be Buffalo's #1 tender in the near future.
Lehner achieved personal bests and career highs in games played (59), wins (23) and shutouts (2) in 2016-17, while also ranking third in the NHL with 1,758 saves and turning in the ninth-best save percentage (.920) ever recorded by a Sabres goaltender with at least 40 appearances in a season.
Lehner has posted an impressive .921 save percentage in two seasons with the Sabres ranks sixth among all NHL goaltenders with at least 50 games played during that span.
Since being selected by the Ottawa Senators in the second round (46th overall) of the 2009 NHL Draft, the Gothenburg, Sweden native has appeared in 166 career NHL games. In his seven NHL seasons with the Sabres and Senators, Lehner has logged a 58-71-26 record with a .918 save percentage and a 2.76 GAA.
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