Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is considered day to day with a lower-body injury and has not been ruled out for the team’s next game on Saturday in Minnesota, coach Don Granato said following a 4-0 loss to the Florida Panthers at KeyBank Center on Thursday.
Luukkonen, who leads the NHL with a .944 save percentage in 11 starts since the beginning of January, tested the injury during the team’s skate Thursday morning. Though he completed the skate, the team held him out to give the injury a chance to heal in full.
“I’d say there’s a good chance (he plays Saturday),” Granato said. “He skated this morning and was still hopeful that he could go. The decision was, give him another day of rest. We think it will be much better and completely resolve, and that’s the hope. So yeah, there’s a good chance.”
Eric Comrie made his first NHL start since Dec. 5 in Luukkonen’s absence and stopped 27 of 30 shots. He held the Panthers to two goals for 58 minutes, after which Carter Verhaeghe added an empty-net goal with 1:33 remaining. Ryan Lomberg scored on the power play with 12 seconds to play.
The Sabres finished with a 45-30 advantage in shots but were unable to beat Panthers goalie Anthony Stolarz, whose shutout performance included 10 high-danger saves (according to Natural Stat Trick).
The loss concluded a four-game homestand for the Sabres, which opened with losses to Dallas and St. Louis in which they outshot their opponents by a combined margin of 82-56. They rebounded from those games with a 7-0 victory over Los Angeles on Tuesday.
“A stingy team and I thought we did some things well to generate, but obviously not enough,” Granato said.
Florida opened the scoring 9:26 into the contest when Aleksandr Barkov stripped the puck from defenseman Ryan Johnson in the corner and found Verhaeghe alone in front for a one-time goal. The Panthers entered the night 22-1-4 when scoring first.
Granato said it appeared Barkov’s stick hit Johnson in the hands as Barkov forced the turnover.
“The player had to reach around Ryan and got him in the gloves and typically those are called,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s … hard to see that when you’re on the wall there in tight. But yeah, that’s unfortunate.”
Anton Lundell deflected a Matthew Tkachuk shot for Florida’s second goal during a delayed penalty with 2:44 remaining in the second period.
Rasmus Dahlin led the Sabres with eight shots, followed by five from Tage Thompson and four apiece from Casey Mittelstadt, Kyle Okposo, and Connor Clifton. They went 0-for-2 on the power play despite generating a combined eight shots on goal.
The Sabres started generating chances early, with Clifton skating into the slot for a shot on goal less than three minutes in. Zach Benson also had an attempt from in close with the score tied 0-0.
“That’s a really good team,” Alex Tuch said. “They play really smart. They play the right way each and every shift. I thought them getting the first goal was a big difference tonight. I thought we ended up having to chase the game a little bit. I think we tried to make it a point to try to get the first one, but obviously, they were able to capitalize on a point-blank opportunity.”
Here’s more from the loss.
