Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) - Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen rejoined the Sabres in practice on Thursday. Luukkonen played just 12:14 on Jan. 27 in Toronto before having to leave the game with an injury. He then missed the Sabres final five games before the Olympics and had to pull out of the Olympics for Team Finland due to the injury.
As far as the injury goes it doesn’t sound like he’s quite at 100% yet,
“It’s getting to the point where it’s pretty normal, as it’s the last push to get it to game shape.”
There’s still six days before the Sabres play their first game out of the break in New Jersey against the Devils, so there’s still time for Luukkonen. He said,
“That’s the silver lining of this whole unfortunate thing is I’ve been able to take my time with it and the little bit of time that we still have is going to be good for me.”
Of course Luukkonen was sad that he had to pull out of the Olympics. He said,
“It was devastating to know that you can’t make it, but we’ve been playing well as a team here, but it would’ve been really special to be part of that.”
On Friday Finland has a semi-final game against Canada.
Luukkonan said he was pretty miserable the first few days after the injury knowing he’d be out for the Olympics. The Sabres goaltender was on a 7-2-1 run when he got hurt so, once he processed everything, he said he was in a good place,
“Mentally for me it’s always that what’s happened and you can’t change that, you go through it for a couple of days and then you start to look forward and you start to be positive about the fact that we have a huge playoff push coming here and I’m really happy that I’m part of the team here and we something special going on right now and being healthy for that has gotten me through it too.”
Talking to the players the last few days, they seem excited to be back and to get to the final 25 games to continue the playoff push. Luukkonen said,
“It’s something really special for everybody here, we want to make it, the whole city wants to make it, so it keeps you really, really motivated to go back playing again.”
Luukkonen was the only new player at practice on Thursday. Zach Benson was still not out there. Both Josh Norris and Josh Dunne were in regular jerseys which means they were able to practice fully.