The biggest disappointment for both the Buffalo Sabres and Rochester Amerks was that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen wasn’t able to stay on the ice to take part in the Calder Cup Playoffs.
The Sabres obviously like Luukkonen’s game, to the point where it’s generally assumed the 23-year-old is going to start next season as half of their goalie tandem. The real question is whether he can stay healthy. This is going to be a crucial summer of work for him back home in Finland.
Luukkonen has already gone through double hip surgery. He’s had a pair of severe ankle injuries that interrupted trips to the NHL. And his season in Rochester ended April 29 when a goalmouth collision against Utica created a hamstring problem that the Amerks quickly knew would take a recovery time of four to six weeks.
“Certainly how big that game was in itself, he was not going to come out of that game if there was any chance that it was just a tweak,” Amerks coach Seth Appert said Friday. “So it was significant. We understood it right away.”
People are also reading…
Luukkonen was getting very close to a return, to the point where it was possible he may have started Game 4 against Laval on Friday night had the Amerks survived Wednesday’s triple-overtime marathon.
“It’s really frustrating to be out for those, especially when it happened last game of the season,” Luukkonen said Thursday on Amerks’ locker cleanout day. “You kind of play for those games. You’re really happy to see how well we did as a team and everybody was playing really well. It’s nice to be part of that and see everybody doing well, but it’s always tough when you can’t play.”
Luukkonen was 2-5-2 in nine games with the Sabres but had strong numbers with a 2.74 goals-against average and .917 save percentage. And remember, his appearances all came in the first half of the season when the Sabres were struggling many nights and didn’t yet have Mattias Samuelsson and Owen Power on their defense.
His overall numbers in Rochester were pedestrian (15-14-6, 3.28/.900) but the Amerks were thin on defense once Samuelsson and Casey Fitzgerald were in Buffalo. What stood out was Luukkonen’s finish in Rochester over his last eight games – when he went 4-2-2, 2.45/.921. And six of those games were against playoff teams.
“I thought that at the end of the season, he looked like a dominant goaltender. He had the look and the swagger,” said Appert. “And he was carrying himself the way I remember coaching against him in the World (under-18) Championships, the World Juniors, I thought he got back to that spot from a mental and physical perspective. So certainly disappointing not to have him in the playoffs because he looked like a goalie that was ready to go on a run.”
Luukkonen is 6-foot-5 and 217 pounds. He covers a lot of net. But it’s also a challenge to be that size. Players are more susceptible to collisions and have to be exceptionally flexible as well.
“I wish I had that problem, to be honest with you. I wish I was a big goalie like that,” joked fellow Rochester goalie Michael Houser, who has been with Luukkonen for parts of the last three years in both Rochester and Cincinnati of the ECHL. “Ukko is young. He’s still figuring out his body, too. If I was that big at that age, I might have had the same stuff (injury-wise).”
Houser, 29, said he didn’t completely feel comfortable with what worked for his body during the season and in his summer training until he was around age 25 or 26.
“You’re training in the summers before that but until you can really get a feel on your body and what works for you, it’s kind of trial and error,” Houser said. “He will figure that out. I’m pretty confident in that. He’s too smart. He works too hard not to.”
“A lot of guys that are 6-5 are really skinny and gangly. He’s actually pretty thick for a 6-5 guy and it’s good weight,” Appert said. “He’s in great shape. But I do think that there’s an acclimatization period that a big guy like him has to go through in terms of just being able to handle the weight that he is at, the height that he’s at and have the the core strength and the coordination all connected together to try to give you your best chance to stay healthy.”
What can Luukkonen do? Appert revealed the Sabres have talked to him about studying yoga to help his flexibility and core strength, and even improve his mental focus. Luukkonen again admitted Thursday it can be tough to stay motivated during an AHL regular season as opposed to NHL games played in full, loud arenas.
“That young man puts a ton of time in,” Appert said. “And I think it’s just more getting to an age where his body is ready to carry the weight that he’s at.”
“Those injuries can happen and you can’t always do anything about them,” Luukkonen said. “But you always want to be as prepared as you can. So I think just mobility and those kinds of exercises will be good stuff to do.”
The important thing to the Sabres is that Luukkonen has been cleared for full offseason workouts and is no longer injury rehabbing.
“This is the first offseason that he’s had … in a long time where he’s healthy now going in to the offseason where he can focus on his training and, and not have it be about rehabbing or coming off a surgery,” said Sabres assistant GM Jason Karmanos. “He needs to play games but he played well when he was up top this year for us (in Buffalo).”
“It’s tough to sit and obviously I learned from these games, which you kind of aim for a whole season,” Luukkonen siad. “But it gives you that motivation for next season. You know how big those games are and what they mean for everybody. You want to do the most to be give yourself a chance to play those meaningful games.”
So Capfriendly.com flipped its site to 2022-23 last week, giving armchair GMs the chance to dig into building new teams for next season. When you put the Sabres together, don’t forget to add $791,667. It’s the last time you’ll have to do it.
That figure is the buyout number for center Cody Hodgson and it will be off the Sabres’ cap after next season. Remember him?
Hodgson signed a six-year, $25.5 million contract extension on Sep. 11, 2013, two months before Darcy Regier was fired as GM. Tim Murray bought out the deal and its $4.25 million annual cap hit on June 30, 2015, with four years left. It meant that $6.33 million was spread over eight years. The Sabres are finally close to getting out of the deal. Even with Hodgson’s money, the site lists the Sabres with an NHL-high $43.1 million in cap space heading into the summer.
The Sabres, by the way, still pay defenseman Christian Ehrhoff a buyout figure of $857,143 every July 1 through 2027, but the figure doesn’t go against the cap because it was a compliance buyout in 2014 coming in the wake of the 2013 lockout. Ehrhoff, who retired in 2018 after playing two years in Germany, will be 44 when he gets his final payment.
• You have to give it up to Laval broadcaster Anthony Marcotte, who had a powerful call on J-S Dea’s series winning goal in triple overtime Wednesday night in Rochester. Sure sounded like he was screaming “May Day! May Day! May Day!” but I just assumed it was something in French.
Nope. That’s what it was. Beat the Sabres affiliate. In May. On a goal scored by a player who’s named is pronounced “Day”. Tweeted Marcotte late Thursday, “a heartfelt tribute to a legend who has just retired, Mr. Rick Jeanneret.”
La description du but gagnant de Jean-Sebastien Dea et un hommage bien senti pour une légende qui vient de prendre sa retraite, M. Rick Jeanneret. 🎤🎙🚀 https://t.co/BxMeXLYsLu
— Anthony Marcotte (@anthonymarcotte) May 26, 2022
• As the Calder Cup Playoffs continued into the weekend without them, the Amerks had Nos. 2-3-4 on the AHL’s postseason scoring list in Arttu Ruotsalainen (8-4-12), JJ Peterka (7-5-12) and Peyton Krebs (0-11-11).
Appert on Peterka: “Here’s a guy that there’s no chance I would have had him on the ice in October, November in pressure-packed defensive moments. And by January, February, March and playoffs, you’re putting him out there in all the biggest moments: Penalty kill, 5-on-6. He became a great defensive player. We saw what his offense was, but his 200-foot game and what he started to connect the dots on was that the better he defended, the better he worked, the more offense he got.”
• One bummer from Rochester’s marathon finale: The AHL still doesn’t provide player ice times or shot attempts on its post-game stat sheet. We thus didn’t get to chuckle at some of the wild numbers you’d have from a game that lasted 101 minutes, 51 seconds.
Would have loved to have seen how many minutes Peterka and Casey Fitzgerald were on the ice in that game. Or how many shot attempts Jack Quinn was credited for (I bet it was around 15). Come on, AHL. It’s 2022. There’s a stat crew at these games and all they’re still doing is plus-minus?
• Connor McDavid vs. Nathan MacKinnon? Sign me up. It will be interesting to see the TV ratings for the Edmonton-Colorado West final. McDavid has been so good that he should be able to transcend the border when it comes to American hockey fans, who have been watching these playoffs in numbers 15% to 20% higher than recent years on NBC and NBCSN. No question ESPN and TNT have had the desired ratings impact.
• Florida was an across-the-board flop against Tampa Bay. No goals from Jonathan Huberdeau, Aleksander Barkov or Claude Giroux. One from Sam Reinhart. The Panthers were 1 for 31 on the power play in their two series and, frankly, were lucky to beat Washington in the first round. Still waiting to see if Andrew Brunette has the interim coach tag removed or if the Panthers look elsewhere.
• When Jack Eichel was traded to Vegas, there was legitimate concern the Sabres were going to have picks 31-32 in the first round of the draft – the scenario of a Vegas-Florida Cup final. Instead, ending with picks 16 and 28 is a much better scenario than Kevyn Adams & Co. could have expected.
• Tampa Bay has Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal and your team does not. That’s the difference. Since the third period of Game 6 against Toronto, the world’s best goalie has an 0.71 goals-against average and .980 save percentage.
• Wonder what happens with St. Louis goalie Ville Husso now in free agency. For $750,000 this season, he went 25-7-6, 2.56/.919. But in the playoffs, the 27-year-old lost his job to Jordan Binnington and finished 2-5, 3.67/.890. How many years and how much money do you give him now?
• When Binnington went down in Game 3 vs. Colorado, the Blues had to get their emergency backup in gear in case something happened to Ville Husso. Who was it? Suburban St. Louis native Joey O’Brien, who played 26 games mostly as a backup at Niagara University from 2015-19 and went 3-11-2 for the Purple Eagles.
EBUGs in the playoffs should not happen but the Blues’ Springfield farm team is still in the AHL playoffs so they did not have a third goalie on hand.