BUFFALO – It’s hardly surprising Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen established himself as one of the NHL’s elite starters down the stretch last season. As a teenager, he emerged as a dynamic prospect, earning the label as the Sabres’ goalie of the future.
The Finn was expected to develop into a special talent.
No one, however, likely anticipated his path to becoming the Sabres’ No. 1 netminder would be fraught with so much adversity.
Luukkonen, 25, battled setbacks from the get-go, beginning his pro career in the ECHL after undergoing hip surgery in 2019. For years, he never seemed to find a groove, his development hampered by injuries and the COVID-19 pandemic.
During his healthy stints with the Rochester Americans, he sometimes enjoyed terrific stretches. But other times he looked wonky in the AHL, leading to concerns he might never fulfill his enormous potential.
Along the way, the Sabres changed regimes and found another terrific goalie prospect, Devon Levi, the youngster who now serves as Luukkonen’s backup.
When Levi, 22, left college in March 2023, he immediately grabbed the starting job from Luukkonen, putting him on the bench for long stretches.
Still, Luukkonen wrestled it back last season, and by January he had morphed into the Sabres’ backbone and MVP.
While his body of work is still small – he has played 101 NHL games, including a career-high 54 last season – the Sabres believe in him so much they awarded him a five-year, $23.75 million contract in July as a restricted free agent.
“I feel like it represents all the work I’ve done, the hours I put in, kind of working through maybe a little bit of the times which were hard, getting through those and getting the reward at the end,” Luukkonen recently told the Times Herald. “It also tells how much they trust me here and it kind of brings more responsibilities, too.”
Luukkonen will likely start tonight’s home opener against the Los Angeles Kings at KeyBank Center. He played his first season opener Friday in Prague, Czechia, making 19 saves in a 4-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils.
A year ago at this time, he was relegated to second or third string, sometimes sitting out games as a healthy scratch as Levi and Eric Comrie played. He finally started the team’s seventh game.
“It wasn’t where I wanted to be at the start of the season, but I knew that I’m a better goalie than I was a year ago and I took big steps during the offseason there,” Luukkonen said. “So it was kind of one of those things that I knew when I get the chance, I could take it, and that’s what happened.”
Luukkonen seized his opportunity, in part, because of how his struggles in Rochester, the most difficult part of his development, shaped him.
Over parts of four seasons, he never played more than 35 games with the Amerks, appeared in the Calder Cup Playoffs, posted a goals-against average below 3.07 or compiled a save percentage above .900.
Dominance can be a strong indicator if a player is ready to graduate to the NHL, and he was far from one of the AHL’s best goalies.
During those tough times – Luukkonen said he found day-to-day life in the AHL difficult – former Amerks coach Seth Appert, now an assistant with the Sabres, and goalie development coach Seamus Kotyk never let up on him.
“They’ve been a big part of it,” Luukkonen said. “They pushed me. They were never easy on me. They had their expectations. They had their goals for me, and they pushed me toward them.
“It’s already hard when you’re kind of in a league where you think you want to be somewhere else already, you’re playing in the AHL and you’re not succeeding there.”
Appert said he talked to the 6-foot-5, 217-pound Luukkonen on the process of becoming an elite goalie, while Kotyk took care of the technical aspect.
All the while, Luukkonen said “they just kept the expectations high,” never lowering the bar.
“It wasn’t like if I had a bad game, they would be like, ‘Oh, that happens,’ sort of stuff like that,” he said. “The expectations were still the same. They kept me honest. They never kind of painted any pretty pictures for me to say that you’re going to get there or you’re going to do that or this. The main focus was being in the AHL and being good there. They really never let me have any excuses on my game or how I practiced there.”
Why did Appert and Kotyk demand so much of him?
“I think because we believed in him so much would be probably the biggest thing,” Appert said. “… I think Seamus and I and the organization just had this vision of what he was going to become someday. It was just a matter of when that was going to happen, and I’ve never had a doubt that he was going to become an elite NHL goalie.”
Appert said that belief comes from Luukkonen’s character, work ethic and coachability. Instead of buckling under the adversity, Appert said it fueled Luukkonen.
“You learn more when you’re struggling than you do when you’re having success,” he said.
A confident Luukkonen enjoyed plenty of success as last season progressed. He said he read the game better, played deeper in his net and slowed the action down for himself.
From Dec. 30 until the campaign ended, he ranked among the NHL’s best goalies, registering a 21-14-2 mark with a 2.30 goals-against average, a .918 save percentage and four shutouts in 37 games.
Only Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who’s destined for the Hall of Fame, played more games during that stretch. Luukkonen’s shutout total tied for the league lead over the final three months.
Having signed a lucrative contract and given the Sabres their best goaltending since Ryan Miller departed in 2014, there are high expectations for Luukkonen.
Still, he said he feels “like nothing really changes.”
“I want to be a good starting goalie,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what contract it is. I feel like if you’re the starting goalie, the expectations are the same. There’s really no excuses.”