Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen knows the feeling of backstopping Finland to victory against Sweden, and the Buffalo Sabres goalie is looking forward to the next encounter between the rivals at the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Finland plays Sweden at Bell Centre in Montreal on Feb. 15 (1 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS) in the second game of the tournament for each team.
"It’s what you want when you’re growing up, you want to be part of that game," Luukkonen told NHL.com. "The biggest game every year for us is when Finland plays Sweden at any tournament. It doesn’t matter what it is, you always want to play against them. You know everybody is watching back home and it’s what you dream when you’re a kid, and it’s going to be unreal to be a part of that."
The 4 Nations Face-Off is an international tournament featuring teams made up of only NHL players from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States.
The teams will play each other once in a round-robin format starting on Feb. 12 at Bell Centre in Montreal. The final day of the round robin is Feb. 17 at TD Garden in Boston, with the two top teams advancing to the championship game on Feb. 20 in Boston.
Prior to being named to Team Finland, Luukkonen had never represented his country at the senior men’s level. He won gold at the 2016 IIHF Under-18 World Championship, which was held in the United States, and silver in 2017 (Slovakia), and gold at the 2019 World Junior Championship (Canada).
Luukkonen was the starter when Finland defeated Sweden, 6-1 in the gold-medal game in 2016, and again at the final of the World Junior Championship in 2019, defeating the United States 3-2.
"We would have had to play in the semifinal against them at the World Junior, but they lost to Switzerland (in the quarterfinal) that year in Vancouver," Luukkonen said. "In the Under-18 my first year, we played them in the final and won gold, it was great.
"I’ve never been part of the men’s national team yet, so this being my first tournament, it’s a huge honor for me. It’s been a really good couple of years for me, finding my game and proving myself, so I feel like this was one of the things everybody was looking forward to. It was a goal of mine and it kind of just proves to me that I’m doing things right and it’s a huge honor to be part of."