Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR 550) – The Buffalo Sabres split their two games at the 2021 Sabres Prospects Challenge, but there was plenty to like with some of their prospects.
First, for me, it was goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s 22-save shutout on Friday against the New Jersey Devils.
Luukkonen didn’t play on Saturday, but he didn’t have to. He gave general manager Kevyn Adams and head coach Don Granato an eyeful on Friday.
It wasn’t an easy shutout for Luukkonen, as he had to clean up some mistakes with some brilliant saves. Twice the Devils had players barreling down the slot and Luukkonen came out to challenge and gave them absolutely nothing to shoot at.
The numbers people keep telling me how bad Luukkonen was in his four games in the NHL last season, but all you had to do is watch the games and see teams averaging 41 shots per-game on him. You could see he was ahead of where the organization thought he was.
This summer, Luukkonen worked on getting more speed to his legs. By playing those four games in “The Show,” he knew he had to get more speed to his legs to get quicker movement out of his big body.
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Against the Devils, a lot of his movement was effortless. He seemed to always be out challenging and always on his angles. The Devils got frustrated and started shooting pucks over the net trying to get too fine with their shots.
After Craig Anderson and Aaron Dell were signed in free agency, Adams admitted that Luukkonen will be given every opportunity to earn the starting job in training camp. The one game in the Prospects Challenge is just the first step.
Another player I liked was defenseman Oskari Laaksonen.
The kid was taken in the third round of the 2017 NHL Draft, and when Buffalo selected him, many of the experts blurted out, “Who?” Not many knew much about him, but, then, general manager Jason Botterill and his staff did their homework, and he’s starting to look like a player that can play in this league.
The right-handed defenseman did a terrific job as the point man on the power play, and showed why he was the quarterback on last year’s top power play with the Rochester Americans. He seems good under duress and can get the puck up ice quickly.
There was one thing during both games that I really didn’t like about his game. There were many times he overstayed his shifts. He doesn’t take the opportunities to get off the ice and then he gets stuck out there. He put his goaltenders under a lot of duress at times, because he couldn’t get off. Some shifts approached 90 seconds to near two minutes.
That is a problem that is correctable, but it must get fixed fast.
Jack Quinn was excellent on Friday, playing center and registered an assist on Brett Murray’s power play goal against New Jersey.
The 20-year-old didn’t play on Saturday, and Amerks head coach Seth Appert said it was not due to a new injury.
"It’s more load management," Appert explained. "He’s coming out of an injury (hernia surgery last April) and he had a really productive couple of days of practice and a productive game. We just felt that it wasn’t necessary to put him in a situation where he was overstressing it this early in training camp. He has a long training camp ahead of him.”
Quinn was close to being Buffalo’s best player on Friday, and is at center because he’s so good at pushing the play. He did that very well against the Devils, and in my mind, the Sabres should continue to look at Quinn at center during training camp.
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J-J Peterka showed why he scored so many goals in Germany, as he has a real quick release - which resulted in two of Buffalo’s five goals this weekend.
The 19-year-old finds holes in the defense, which produces chances for his team. He’s very quick in his movements and has a knack for finding ways to get to pucks first.
He does have one real bad habit, and that is he tries to stickhandle through two or three defenders. It didn’t work once for him, and it caused two costly turnovers. He must learn, and I think he will learn that he can’t dangle through half the team in the AHL or the NHL.
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This year’s fifth round pick Viljami Marjala was very good in this tournament. The winger didn’t pick up any points, but he seemed to do a very good job of generating scoring chances and creating offense.
Linus Weissback’s speed produced three clean-cut breakaways this weekend, but none of them produced goals. The problem with the former Wisconsin winger is he’d play well and then he’d go away for stretches in the game.
Arttu Ruotsalainen returned to his natural position of center for the first time since coming to North America. He had two nice assists on Saturday and looked like a guy that can maybe handle being the center behind Dylan Cozens and Casey Mittelstadt. It’ll be very interesting to see if he starts at center in training camp on Thursday.
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As the Sabres report for physicals on Wednesday and hit the ice for practice on Thursday. The Associated Press is reporting that Sabres captain Jack Eichel will report for his physical.
***Photo: Buffalo Sabres / Bill Wippert (@BuffaloSabres) (@BWipp)
