Toronto, Ontario (WGR) - The Buffalo Sabres are in Toronto on Thursday to play their third straight Atlantic Division game. On Monday they beat the Florida Panthers and on Tuesday, they came from two goals down in the third period to get an overtime point in Montreal against the Canadiens. Monday the whole team played extremely well while on Tuesday, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stood on his head and stole them a point.
Luukkonen came in on Monday after Colten Ellis gave up two goals and was pulled. Against the Habs, he stopped 35-of-38 shots.
Overall, Luukkonen is 2-2-1 this season with a 3.46 goals-against average and an .850 save percentage.
The team is averaging 3.57 goals-against this year, which is 23rd overall in the NHL.
Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff revealed Thursday that goalie Alex Lyon was scheduled to get the start Tuesday in Montreal, but had a setback in his recovery from an upper-body injury.
Captain Rasmus Dahlin will miss his second-straight game, though Ruff says he's "50/50" to play Saturday back in Montreal.
In their last four games against the Leafs the Sabres are 3-0-1. Thursday features one of the worst penalty killing teams in the league against the NHL's best. Buffalo is 30th killing 60.9%, while the top ranked Maple Leafs are killing at a 95.8% rate. That's 23-of-24 penalties killed off. Buffalo is without Dahlin and Conor Timmins on the penalty kill due to injuries and Alex Tuch and Bo Byram elected to leave the team this summer. That's four huge holes on the kill. Mattias Samulesson said,
"I think there's a little bit of an adjustment when you have new personnel. A lot of the penalty kill is making reads and reading off each other, so there's a time period of getting use to what everyone is thinking, so just trying to grind those out, watching tape on it, so not where we want to be, but it's going in the right direction for sure."
Both teams are 3-3-1. Toronto just came home 1-1-1 on their road trip ending with a 5-4 loss in Utah. They have scored 10 goals in their last two games. Auston Matthews went pointless in his first two games, but in the five games since he's scored five goals and seven assists for 12 points. Will Nylander also has five goals and seven assists for 12 points in seven games. That's fifth in the NHL.
In his first season with Toronto, Sergei Bobrovsky is 1-2-1 with a 2.97 goals-against average and a .907 save percentage. Anthony Stolarz is 2-1-0 so far this season with a 3.32 goals-against average and an .875 save percentage.
Join Zack Jones and Derek Kramer for pregame coverage on WGR starting at 6 p.m. when you'll hear from Ruff, Samuelsson and Konsta Helenius.
