{"id":30931,"date":"2018-06-14T21:55:09","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T01:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=30931"},"modified":"2018-06-14T21:55:09","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T01:55:09","slug":"buffalo-sabres-sign-ukko-pekka-luukkonen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/06\/14\/buffalo-sabres-sign-ukko-pekka-luukkonen\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Sabres Sign Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Buffalo\u00a0Sabres<\/a> announced today that the team has signed goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/strong> to a three-year, entry-level contract.<\/p>\n

\n

The Buffalo Sabres today announced the team has signed goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to a three-year, entry-level contract. https:\/\/t.co\/VoYVuHr0yL<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Sabres PR (@SabresPR) June 14, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sabres Sign Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/h1>\n

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was drafted in the second round, 54th overall by the Sabres in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. The 19-year-old native of Espoo, Finland is a rather large netminder standing at 6-foot-4 and weighing in at 198 pounds. This past season he played for Leki Lempaala in Finland’s second division. He posted a record of 11-11-2 with a GAA of 2.92 and a save percentage of .909. Luukkonen also played one game for HPK Hameenlinna in the top Finnish league SM-Liiga.<\/p>\n

Luukkonen represented Finland at the World Junior Championships this year where he posted a record of 2-3 with a 3.13 GAA and a .879 save percentage.<\/p>\n

He is a very lengthy goalie with quick reflexes and cuts down his angles well. He is quick moving side to side and also has great puck handling which is key in today’s NHL to help with the transition game. His rebound control could use a bit of work, which is expected from a\u00a0young goalie.<\/p>\n

You can see Ben Kerr’s full scouting report on Luukkonen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Luukkonen’s Future<\/h2>\n

Luukkonen looks to be the goaltender for the future for the Buffalo Sabres. He was top-ranked goaltender according to the International Scouting Services and was the second-ranked\u00a0goalie by Last Word’s own Ben Kerr going into last year’s draft. He ended up being the second goalie drafted last year after the Dallas Stars<\/a> selected Jake Oettinger<\/strong> in the first round.<\/p>\n

Luukkonen will spend next season with HPK in the top Finnish league SM-Liiga where he hopes to develop his game more before coming over to North America for a chance to play with the Sabres.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Buffalo\u00a0Sabres announced today that the team has signed goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to a three-year, entry-level contract. The Buffalo Sabres today announced the team has signed goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to a three-year, entry-level contract. https:\/\/t.co\/VoYVuHr0yL \u2014 Sabres PR (@SabresPR) June 14, 2018 Sabres Sign Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was drafted in the second round, 54th […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2506,"featured_media":9693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,3271,34],"tags":[182,3409,1637],"class_list":["post-30931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sabres","category-european-leagues","category-news","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-leki-lempaala","tag-ukko-pekka-luukkonen"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2506"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}