(WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres clearly played their worst game under Don Granato on Saturday afternoon, losing 6-2 to the Bruins in Boston, but that’s not the story.
The story is Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen having to be helped off the ice at the end of the second period. The big goaltender could not put any pressure on his left leg after getting it caught on the post as he came across the crease. After the game, Granato said he won’t have an update until they get back to Buffalo.
There’s a good chance Luukkonen may not play in the last week of the season.
“It’s added on to the tough day," Granato said in his postgame conference call. "It was a tough day all around, and that’s obviously a big one, because this is a great opportunity for him to get some minutes. Now that’s in question.”
Granato thought Luukkonen battled extremely well in the 40 minutes that he played. The big goalie made 26 saves on 29 shots.
Luukkonen doesn’t give up many rebounds, but on the Bruins' third goal, a Jeremy Lauzon shot handcuffed him and he dropped the puck to a waiting Patrice Bergeron.
If this is the end of Luukkonen’s season, he will finish 1-3-0 with a 3.88 goals-against average and a .906 save percentage. In Rochester this season, he was 7-5-2 with a 3.60 goals-against average and an .889 save percentage.
Luukkonen also played 13 games for TPS Turku in Finland and went 6-3-4 with a 2.52 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage. That would give him 31 games this season.
Teams averaged 41.2 shots per-game on Luukkonen, which is way too many. Granato likes to say many of the shots were of poor quality, and that’s right, but only to a point.
I think Luukkonen has shown a calmness in net that will serve him very well in the National Hockey League. For the most part, he doesn’t kick out too many rebounds and he’s very athletic in the crease.
The Bruins came at Buffalo in waves, and Luukkonen was very good, especially in close. He had Nick Ritchie in his lap numerous times, but fought through it to makes saves.
If Luukkonen’s season is over, it’ll be a shame, because he probably had three more games coming to him.
I think it was a good thing Luukkonen got up to Buffalo to get some games in. Now the 22-year-old knows what it’s like to be in the NHL, and it gives him something to work for during the summer.
Saturday was the first game the Sabres played in May since 2007, and they laid a complete egg. They weren’t moving their feet, the awareness was horrendous, and they got run over by a team that they aren’t even close to matching up with. That is something general manager Kevyn Adams will need to address in the offseason.
Boston finished 7-1-0 against Buffalo this season, with the only loss coming when captain Patrice Bergeron was out of the lineup. Buffalo ended up 1-6-1 against the Bruins.
One of the many bad habits Granato had gotten out of the Sabres' game was how the team would pull up immediately after gaining the blue line. Trading Taylor Hall helped get rid of one of the main offenders, but it had totally stopped until Saturday.
“It was very, very uncharacteristic of us with that component specifically, but there were so many components, it just didn’t look like us. We just kept making it hard on ourselves,” Granato said.
Granato went on to say that many things lost them possession.
“We just kept making it hard on ourselves, and we just couldn’t, for whatever reason, get to a simple game and the shot is the perfect example," he said. "We didn’t get any pucks behind them, we passed on shots that we could’ve taken, we were too easy to play against and it was self-inflicted.”
Buffalo’s goals came thanks to one of the few heads up plays they made all day. Casey Mittelstadt took a faceoff with the Sabres down two men for one second. He won the draw, and Jacob Bryson realized that Riley Sheahan was coming out of the penalty box. Instead of firing it down ice, the defenseman slid a backhand pass that allowed Sheahan to skate right into the puck as he exited the box. Sheahan actually scored on a pretty nice shot.
Buffalo rarely got in on the forecheck, but one time in the third period, Arttu Ruotsalainen got in behind the net a forced a turnover to Rasmus Asplund. Ruotsalainen kept going to the net, and pushed one by Jeremy Swayman for his fifth goal of the season.
Swayman basically stood there for most of the afternoon, making just 17 saves.
The Sabres come home for the final two games of the season in Buffalo against the New York Islanders. The first game of the two-game set is on Monday.
