Luukkonen knows he has to be better as the Sabres fall to Dallas 4-0

Buffalo, N.Y. (WGR) - The Buffalo Sabres fell back to .500 after four games thanks to Thursday's 4-0 loss to the Dallas Stars. It wasn't a good game for Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen or any of his teammates either.

The first period was pretty good for them. The problem is they created good early scoring chances on Jake Oettinger, but he was making big saves that Luukkonen wasn't. Oettinger recorded his second straight shutout making 26 saves. This season he's 2-1-0 with a 0.67 goals against and .967 save percentage.

Right off the hop Tage Thompson got in on the forecheck behind the net and found Peyton Krebs alone in front, he doesn't score. Noah Ostlund then sets up Zach Benson alone in front, he doesn't score. Midway through the period Mattias Samuelsson said he and Rasmus Dahlin both got caught playing offense and Dallas got a 2-on-1. Samuelsson played it perfectly taking Jason Robertson's pass away to Mikko Rantanen, but Robertson, who netted 45 goals last season scored on the far side. I realize Robertson is a great goal scorer, but Luukkonen has the shooter and must stop that puck.

In the second period the Sabres just fell apart. Sam Steel took an unscreened shot from the middle of the blue line and it went in between Luukkonen's leg. He needs to stop that shot. Just 4:21 later, Nils Lundkvist fires a puck off the back wall. Louie Crevier lets Rantanen go and he takes the puck and deposits into the open net.

The Stars hadn't scored a power play goal all season, but Roope Hintz was uncovered in front and Wyatt Johnston gave him a perfect pass for their first goal of the season with the extra man. You could use a big save there. Buffalo went 0-for-3 on the power play and were pitifully bad and are now 0-for-13 on the season.

Luukkonen is 1-2-0 this season with a 4.02 goals against and .782 save percentage. This was the first game that you can say Luukkonen let in bad goals and he knows that this season just hasn't been good enough. The goals by Robertson and Hintz were brought up and the Sabres netminder knows they could use big saves there,

"Overall I just want to make a save on those, I want to help the team win, so four goals against in less than two periods is not good enough."

It wound up being four goals in 35:34.

I pointed out to Luukkonen that he could've been lights out, but it didn't matter because the team didn't score any goals. He wasn't about to hide behind that.

"I can't score goals either, that's not my job, my job is to keep the pucks out of the net and right now it's not happening. It's only three games in (for him), but you don't want to start a season like this. It's not like they're all bad goals (12 in total), but I think there's something to clean up in every game."

Now the question is where's is Luukkonen's confidence at? He said,

"I don't care if they scored four on breakaways, you don't win hockey games by letting in four goals and that's just how hockey goes, sometimes your team doesn't have the best night, but that doesn't mean that you can't have a good night, so I don't care if its a confidence thing or it's something I need to figure out and be better."

Rantanen was in on all four Dallas goals scoring a goal and three assists.

Lindy Ruff was pretty disgusted after the game with what he saw and he started with that three goal second period,

"Details, two goals we came off our men defensively. The one off the wall we let their guy come out of the corner and go right to the backside of the net, no coverage, those details weren't missing the other night, tonight a lot of details we got beat on."

Buffalo has fallen behind in all four games. Ruff said,

"We've got to start better. If you look at the two real good chances in the first five minutes, we've got to start putting some of those away. If you're going to play against this team and you get down, they're really hard to play against. We have to start putting the puck into the back of the net early."

Josh Norris was on the ice for all four Dallas goals and Ruff knows Norris is not himself yet,

"He's trying to find his game, he's struggled obviously, he's been in on a couple of good opportunities he hit a post last game, but chances are lower so I would describe it as trying to find his game. Norris has no goals in one assist in four games. Where he has done well is in the faceoff circle winning 51.7% of his faceoffs.

For the second time in four games Ryan McLeod was on the ice for three goals against. His game hasn't been the same since his first season in Buffalo. It's gotten to the point where he needs to be taken out with Sam Carrick or Tyson Kozak going in. He is supposed to be Buffalo's two-way center and he isn't even a shell of what he was in 2024-25. Jiri Kulich can take his spot on the power play and Ostlund is already a much better two-way player than McLeod.

Buffalo will have Friday off and they host the Utah Mammoth on Saturday who lost in Boston to the Bruins on Thursday 6-1. Utah is 3-2-0.