{"id":482925,"date":"2026-01-29T14:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=482925"},"modified":"2026-01-29T14:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T19:01:50","slug":"buffalo-sabres-goalie-out-at-least-one-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/01\/29\/buffalo-sabres-goalie-out-at-least-one-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Sabres Goalie Out At Least One Week"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/01\/29\/nhl-predictions-january-29-buffalo-sabres-los-angeles-kings\/\" target=\"_self\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> will be without one of their goaltenders for at least a week. <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/buffalo-sabres-ukko-pekka-luukkonen-out-week-lower-body-injury-nhl-news?utm_source=dlvr.it&amp;utm_medium=bluesky\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">News emerged<\/a> on Thursday that goalie Ukko-Pekka <span>Luukkonen will be out for at least a week with a lower-body injury. This news was disclosed to the media by Sabres head coach <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/ruffli01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lindy Ruff<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"bluesky-embed\" data-bluesky-uri=\"at:\/\/did:plc:3uus7y6h3rlrk6sbctzxm4bg\/app.bsky.feed.post\/3mdlaqvtsho2m\" data-bluesky-cid=\"bafyreiepau3rsosuqjxdhzqticvktat54as4doplte4zzrvr7ahibmz25u\">\n<p>Sabres\u2019 Luukkonen to miss next week with lower-body injury<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; <a  href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:3uus7y6h3rlrk6sbctzxm4bg?ref_src=embed\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">DailyFaceoff.com (@dailyfaceoff.bsky.social)<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/did:plc:3uus7y6h3rlrk6sbctzxm4bg\/post\/3mdlaqvtsho2m?ref_src=embed\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2026-01-29T16:52:14.958Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/embed.bsky.app\/static\/embed.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Buffalo Sabres Goalie Ukko-Pekka <span>Luukkonen Out For a Week At Least<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>The Finnish goalie left in the first period of Buffalo&#8217;s 7-4 victory over the<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2026\/01\/27\/toronto-maple-leafs-need-to-move-on-from-this-forward-soon\/\" target=\"_self\"> Toronto Maple Leafs.<\/a> <span>Luukkonen departed after <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/matthau01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Auston Matthews<\/a> scored and he was replaced by <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/e\/ellisco01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Colten Ellis<\/a>. Buffalo weathered the storm and continued its red-hot January.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Luukkonen has only played for the Sabres across his six-year NHL career. The 26-year-old has 11-7-2 record with a .903 save percentage and 2.73 goals-against average. He did miss some time earlier in the season with an unrelated injury. However, he&#8217;s recorded a .916 save percentage in 12 games since December 21.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Espoo, Finland native has a career record of 82-72-17 with seven shutouts during his tenure. <span>Luukkonen has a 3.02 GAA and .898 save percentage as well. Buffalo originally drafted him in the second round, 54th overall of the 2017 NHL Draft.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s also been selected to Team Finland&#8217;s roster for the upcoming Milano Cortina games. Finnish management is hoping for good news when he reevaluated in a week&#8217;s time.<\/p>\n<h3>What It Means<\/h3>\n<p><span>Luukkonen has playing some of the best hockey of his career. He and <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/lyonal01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Lyon<\/a> have<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/12\/31\/buffalo-sabres-goaltender-injury-update\/\" target=\"_self\"> teamed up<\/a> to give the Sabres a fighting chance of ending their painfully long Stanley Cup Playoff drought.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Ellis can also fill in like he did against the Maple Leafs.\u00a0 If things get desperate, Buffalo could also call up <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/l\/levide01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-29_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devon Levi<\/a>, who is playing very well in AHL Rochester.<\/p>\n<p>The Sabres are six points above the postseason cut line and sit in third in the Atlantic Division as of Thursday&#8217;s games. Buffalo hockey fans are hoping <span>Luukkonen will be back sooner rather than later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Main photo by: Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Buffalo Sabres will be without one of their goaltenders for at least a week. News emerged on Thursday that goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will be out for at least a week with a lower-body injury. This news was disclosed to the media by Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff. Sabres\u2019 Luukkonen to miss next week with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2352,"featured_media":476576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[3,4547,6671,34,4548],"tags":[604,5833,4411,1637],"class_list":["post-482925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sabres","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-news","category-nhl","tag-alex-lyon","tag-buffalo-sabres-news","tag-colten-ellis","tag-ukko-pekka-luukkonen"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482925","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\/2352"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=482925"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":482926,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482925\/revisions\/482926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}