Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to return to Sabres after brief conditioning stint with AHL's Rochester
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will return to the Buffalo Sabres after a one-game conditioning stint with Rochester of the American Hockey League.
he Buffalo Sabres again have three goalies on their roster, as the team announced Thursday that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will return to Buffalo after a one-game conditioning stint with Rochester of the American Hockey League.
The move comes two days after the Sabres loaned Luukkonen, the team’s No. 1 goalie last season, to Rochester, and a day after Colten Ellis made 27 saves in a 4-2 win against Detroit on Wednesday at KeyBank Center in his NHL debut.
The puck gets past Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (1) in a preseason game.
Joed Viera/Buffalo News
Luukkonen made 21 saves in Rochester's 4-2 win Wednesday against Syracuse at Blue Cross Arena in Rochester, but he has yet to play a game with the Sabres this season. He missed the bulk of training camp and the preseason with separate lower-body injuries, and he stopped 11 of 12 shots he faced in just one period of one preseason game, a 5-3 loss to Pittsburgh on Oct. 1 at KeyBank Center.
Luukkonen hasn’t played in a regular-season NHL game since April 15, a 4-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. He was 24-24-5 with a 3.20 goals-against average and a .887 save percentage but started only five of the Sabres’ final 16 games last season.
Luukkonen’s return to the Sabres means the goalie corner will get a little more crowded. He will join Ellis and Alex Lyon, who started the Sabres’ first six games after having joined the team as a free agent in July.
Sabres coach Lindy Ruff on Wednesday initially didn't give an immediate timetable for Luukkonen's potential return to the Sabres, when he spoke to reporters Wednesday.
“He had a really good day and he will play in Rochester, and then we’ll just evaluate from there,” Ruff said. "That’s the plan, to see how that goes. Hopefully, it goes really well and we go from there.”
It's likely the Sabres will shed more light on what the immediate future is at goalie when they hold their morning skate, which is not open to the public, Friday at KeyBank Center, ahead of a 7 p.m. faceoff Friday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Sabres canceled their scheduled on-ice practice Thursday morning, a day after a 4-2 win Wednesday against the Detroit Red Wings.