“He Was Really Dialed” | Lindy Ruff On Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen In 4-3 Win | Buffalo Sabres

“He Was Really Dialed” | Lindy Ruff On Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen In 4-3 Win | Buffalo Sabres

Wendy, you said the other night that the second one for UPL was going to be coming at some point and obviously it doesn’t start well, but what did you think about the way he battled all night right to the end? Well, his start to do with his game. It had to do with our game, our group, uh, you know, we we tried to come with a with pressure. Um, they beat our pressure and when they beat our pressure, they got, you know, we gave them a couple great looks. Uh there’s a couple 50/50 pucks that if we would have won, we would have created something, but we didn’t. You know, they played yesterday, so we our plan kind of backfired on us and um there was nothing he could do really. What did you think though as the game went on though? He he didn’t fold in that situation and overtime in the shootout, you know. Yeah, he I thought he was really dialed in. Um he just looked comfortable. um made some great safes and you know coming off the you know the camp and a little bit only that had a little bit of playing time in the one game you know probably didn’t really know what to expect but I thought he got him he got in pretty good rhythm you got a your goal 15 seconds after they got their second goal. What kind of switched it around for you that you guys were able to get going and to get it 15 seconds afterward must have really helped. We got a we got a puck below the goal line. Uh we won a 50/50 battle above the goal line. I think it was Zucker won the battle and uh we find Tomer in in the slot and you know a lot of times if you look at the even the Boston game we probably had four or five of those we missed. You know it was good to see it was a good answer for giving up that second goal the way we gave it up. We’ve never seen Isach move like that. I mean you just looked confident. What was the difference in him tonight in previous games we’ve seen him here? probably confidence like you said, skated well. Uh he’s really played well down there and he’s coming up here, you know, knowing that we’re going to give him a good opportunity, use him on the power play and kind of play him where he’s been playing and and get enough ice time to with with quality people to get something done. In third period, first you had the backtoback penalty kills, Krebs and Malenstein, and then the late penalty kill about three minutes left with uh Tuck penalties. How valuable was the penalty kill, particularly in the third period? I I don’t think our penalty killers gave up a scoring chance. That’s how good they were. I thought our our clears were excellent. I thought Sammy was all night was a beast when it comes to the killing and blocking shots the previous game. I think he blocked like three shots, killing the penalty. Um but we didn’t make a lot of mistakes. And then we got rewarded there with the Mloud breakaway that we could have we could have hurt him with a short-handed goal, too. I know that drives you insane to take three penalties in the third period, but is that basically because you really can’t get any offense going for those six minutes of the 20 in the third period? Uh well, I mean, the penalties we took a couple we can’t take. As simple as that. Um we we got away with it in Boston with the penalty we took late. We got away with it again tonight. I think it it’s a lesson right now that we have to absorb and we have to move forward and we know we can’t our discipline inside the game at you know maybe you take one uh but we can’t continue to take multiple penalties or even penalties in that last three four minutes um because it puts a lot of stress on on the killers. bow in the shootout. What went into that? Just based on practice, uh the practice reps they do, uh you know, it got down to, you know, several guys that we had on the list and I had to choose between a couple and uh I probably surprised a few guys when I said Bo, but uh he rewarded us with a goal. So, it was a big goal. I know Darlene’s been dying to do it. Did he ask you to do it or did you just go No, no, I just went down. I just went down just uh after a shot and said, “You’re up next. Go win it for us.” Lindy, on the goender front, we haven’t even seen Ellis as a backup. Is the back still bothering? Um his back is a a lot better. Uh you know, he’s not his back isn’t bad where he couldn’t play. Just made a decision to go with with UPL. So, thanks

Buffalo Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff spoke to the media after a 4-3 shootout win over the Washington Capitals on November 2, 2025. Ruff talked about the strong play of Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in the game and what it took for the team to comeback in the game and win. He also discussed the strong play of the penalty kill in the game and what the team can do to continue their success.

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