Luukkonen To Miss Olympics Due To Lower-Body Injury

The Buffalo Sabres play the second of back-to-back games in the Sunshine State against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday, and will be starting rookie Colten Ellis after veteran Alex Lyon made 39 saves in a 5-3 victory over the Florida Panthers. Goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has not played since suffering a lower-body injury against the Toronto Maple Leafs last Tuesday, and that injury will keep Luukkonen from participating in the Winter Olympics for Finland in Milano Cortina starting next week. 

"He's gonna miss a little bit of time. I'd say right now, we're looking at a week and then see where he's at." Ruff said last week. "We really haven't talked about (the Olympics) yet. We don't want to rule it out. Let's just see where we get by early next week."

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Luukkonen left the game in the first period after allowing a goal to Auston Matthews, and has not been seen on the ice since. Head coach Lindy Ruff indicated on Monday that the netminder was making progress, but it appears as if he will not be fully recovered in time. The injury was the third time the 26-year-old has been injured twice since the start of training camp, which has made it fortuitous that the club has carried three goalies on their roster.  

Finland selected Boston backup Joonas Korpisalo to replace Luukkonen. It was expected that he would be serving as the Finn’s third goalie behind starter Juuse Saros (Nashville) and Kevin Lankinen (Vancouver). The Sabres are now down to two participants in the games starting next Wednesday, forward Tage Thompson(USA) and team captain Rasmus Dahlin.    

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