{"id":434818,"date":"2026-01-29T20:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/434818\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T20:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:00:14","slug":"buffalo-sabres-goalie-out-at-least-one-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/434818\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Sabres Goalie Out At Least One Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Buffalo Sabres<\/a> will be without one of their goaltenders for at least a week. News emerged<\/a> 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sabres\u2019 Luukkonen to miss next week with lower-body injury<\/p>\n

\u2014 DailyFaceoff.com (@dailyfaceoff.bsky.social)<\/a> 2026-01-29T16:52:14.958Z<\/a><\/p>\n

Buffalo Sabres Goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen Out For a Week At Least<\/p>\n

The Finnish goalie left in the first period of Buffalo\u2019s 7-4 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.<\/a> Luukkonen departed after Auston Matthews<\/a> scored and he was replaced by Colten Ellis<\/a>. Buffalo weathered the storm and continued its red-hot January.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s recorded a .916 save percentage in 12 games since December 21.<\/p>\n

The Espoo, Finland native has a career record of 82-72-17 with seven shutouts during his tenure. 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.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also been selected to Team Finland\u2019s roster for the upcoming Milano Cortina games. Finnish management is hoping for good news when he reevaluated in a week\u2019s time.<\/p>\n

What It Means<\/p>\n

Luukkonen has playing some of the best hockey of his career. He and Alex Lyon<\/a> have teamed up<\/a> to give the Sabres a fighting chance of ending their painfully long Stanley Cup Playoff drought.<\/p>\n

Ellis can also fill in like he did against the Maple Leafs.\u00a0 If things get desperate, Buffalo could also call up Devon Levi<\/a>, who is playing very well in AHL Rochester.<\/p>\n

The Sabres are six points above the postseason cut line and sit in third in the Atlantic Division as of Thursday\u2019s games. Buffalo hockey fans are hoping Luukkonen will be back sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

Main photo by: Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Sabres will be without one of their goaltenders for at least a week. News emerged on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100],"tags":[4114,1107,229,5139,5133,2187,5,4,1108,7800],"class_list":["post-434818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-buffalo-sabres","tag-alex-lyon","tag-buffalo","tag-buffalo-sabres","tag-buffalo-sabres-news","tag-buffalosabres","tag-colten-ellis","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-sabres","tag-ukko-pekka-luukkonen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115980168716605894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}