BUFFALO – Right now, the Sabres want to err on the side of caution. Goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, having completed his AHL conditioning assignment, is healthy and ready to play.
But given Luukkonen’s injury history – he has already gone down twice this season – the Sabres must be careful. They plan to keep three goalies.
For the time being at least, the Sabres have Luukkonen, veteran Alex Lyon and rookie Colten Ellis, who made 27 saves in Wednesday’s 4-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings, his NHL debut.
Coach Lindy Ruff, who Sabres host the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight, said the crowded crease “is a good problem.”
“We’ve a young guy that stepped in and played a good game for us,” he said this morning in KeyBank Center. “Lyon has played well. I think the question is, will UPL stay healthy? We can’t answer that. I think we got to stay in a place where we’re protecting ourselves.”
Luukkonen stopped 21 shots for the Rochester Americans in Wednesday’s 4-2 win over the Syracuse Crunch, his first game since suffering a lower-body injury Oct. 1 and exiting a preseason contest after one period.
The Finn, who was recalled Thursday, hadn’t played a full game since April 15.
“I felt like it was a good thing to go back there and find the game speed again, and feeling, kind of, the biggest thing was to make sure that I felt good playing 60 minutes,” Luukkonen said. “The body feels good, everything feels strong. I feel like I got that out of it and got what I needed.”
Luukkonen tweaked a lower-body injury late in the summer and missed the first week of training camp before going down again late in the preseason.
In his absence, Lyon played the first six games before Ellis gave him a breather Wednesday. Lyon will likely start tonight.
“What if we put (Luukkonen) in, he has another setback?” Ruff said. “I think you’ve got to kind of run out every scenario and make sure we back ourselves here, and it’s a good problem to have. Frankly, I’ll deal with that rather than not having a goalie.”
While he said the goalies get along, Ruff acknowledged “it’s probably not a comfortable process.”
“I don’t think it’s comfortable for us,” he said. “I don’t think it’s comfortable for them. We got three guys that like being around each other. But I think every goalie wants to play.”