Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s focus is solely on the Buffalo Sabres and their upcoming season.
The 27-year-old goaltender is aware of the rumours that have swirled around Connor Hellebuyck and the Sabres for much of the summer, but the Espoo, Finland native hasn’t given them much attention. Buffalo has been one of the most talked-about potential destinations for the Winnipeg Jets superstar, who has now publicly asked for a trade.
“My dad told me about it,” Luukkonen told NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti last month at the NHL’s European Player Media Tour in Germany. “I don’t follow it too much. Of course, no hockey player is completely out of it, so I knew that it was going on, but in the end, I didn’t hear anything from my agent or anybody else either. So, I don’t know to what extent those [talks] went.”
The Sabres finished last season on a 35-9-4 run that saw the team finally end its 14-year playoff drought. To get to that moment, though, the team made a drastic change with the midseason firing of general manager Kevyn Adams. Luukkonen says that rang major alarm bells for him and his teammates.
“When the GM gets fired everybody kind of realizes, ‘This is it, we have to change the way we do things or we really have to start winning now or next it’s the players who get traded,’” the 54th overall selection of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft said. “So, I think things just boiled down on that point and then we kind of realized that we have to start to play more active and more puck possession and more speed style hockey.”
While the team tasted postseason hockey for the first time in nearly a decade and a half, the playoff run didn’t end the way anybody had hoped for heading into them. After a six-game series win over the Boston Bruins in the first round, the team fell in seven games to the Montreal Canadiens in the second round. Game 7 was a 3-2 overtime loss at the Key Bank Center.
“There’s a moving screen,” Luukkonen said of Alex Newhook’s series-winning goal that beat him after a deflection off of defenceman Rasmus Dahlin. “You’re kind of too high on your stance, and then you have to react down on the puck. And you think that it’s coming up when it’s not. So, it’s really hard for a goalie to read a shot when the puck is not flat on the ice. I don’t know if it hit something or not. In the end, it’s just not the way you want the season to end.”
What Luukkonen hopes to see differently from the Sabres this season is a significantly better start. The team was 14-14-1 when Adams was replaced by Jarmo Kekalainen 10 days before Christmas. Consistency is key.
“We kind of saw that in playoffs,” Luukkonen said. “When you have a style of play which has been working for you during the regular season, you can’t really start to change anything when the playoffs start. So, it’s just getting comfortable with the way we play, everybody getting comfortable with their own role, and what they have to do for the team to win.”
Luukkonen heads into his seventh NHL season. In a career 190 games, he is 93-74-18 with a goals against average of 2.95 and a save percentage of exactly .900.
The Sabres open their preseason slate on Sept. 21 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. They make their regular season bow on Oct. 1 at the Columbus Blue Jackets.