Forget Luukkonen’s gaffe. Sabres have a much bigger problem to solve vs. Bruins
BUFFALO – It was a tale of two images. The first, Buffalo excitement incarnate, was Bills quarterback Josh Allen, banging the drum before the Sabres hosted Game 2 vs. the Boston Bruins at KeyBank Center Tuesday night. He bat-flipped the drum mallet, produced a beer from his pocket, slammed it a-la Stone Cold Steve Austin and sent the crowd into a frenzy.
The Sabres fans were swelling with confidence following their team’s thrilling Game 1 victory, perhaps even louder than they were on Sunday, and it appeared the Bruins had a tall order ahead of them as they tried to even the series.
The second image: a dumbfounded Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, wondering how Morgan Geekie’s half-ice knuckler found the back of the net midway through the second period. Calling to mind playoff goalie scapegoats like Dan Cloutier, Luukkonen was utterly handcuffed by the one-hopper. It put Boston up 2-0 and plunged the crowd into introspective silence, all those thoughts of being the NHL’s cursed franchise rushing back into their spiralling brains.
“I was trying to get to it before it bounced, but when you start to question yourself and stuff like that, then you get the bad bounce,” Luukkonen said. “And it’s unfortunate, but I have to play through it.”
Luukkonen had already allowed a softy earlier in the period, a saw-it-all-the-way Viktor Arvidsson backhander that beat Luukkonen five-hole. And the two-goal lead quickly turned into three before the second stanza was up when Pavel Zacha redirected a David Pastrnak pass on the power play. Luukkonen got the vote of confidence to start the third, but his night was done 16 seconds later when Arvidsson ripped home a blocker-side wrister to finish a 2-on-1. With Buffalo down 4-0, coach Lindy Ruff recognized an opportunity to give backup Alex Lyon some reps coming off an injury in case he’ll be needed later in the series, so Ruff pulled Luukkonen, ending his night with just 15 saves on 19 shots against.
“There’s no way around it, and you’ve just got to do better with those,” Luukkonen said. “I feel like the biggest thing for me personally is that in those situations, if there’s a bad bounce, bad goal, you have to stop the bleeding. But I wasn’t able to do that tonight.”
It was obviously a nightmarish game for Luukkonen, who, honest to goodness, looked extremely sharp and confident in Game 2’s first period. And his .821 save percentage through two games simply doesn’t cut it. But his teammates weren’t about to blame him for the defeat, and they didn’t feel the gaffe was the turning point in the game.
“No, I don’t think so – they were putting the pressure on us for a while there, and they earned their bounce,” Sabres defenseman Bo Byram told Daily Faceoff. “So that’s gonna happen throughout the series. Hopefully we get a few going the other way. I don’t think I would necessarily point at that moment and describe it as [the turning point].”
Another stat should probably matter more to the Sabres right now than save percentage: the number zero. As in, zero goals on the power play for Buffalo in five tries Tuesday night, extending their alarming drought to 0 for 31 dating back March 31 of the regular season. Not only have they looked listless with the man advantage, but a lack of urgency in their puck management is leading to chances the other way; Luukkonen had to stop a Mark Kastelic shorthanded breakaway in the first period.
Repeatedly during his media availabilities in this series so far, Ruff had shrugged off concerns over the power play, insisting it’s simply hard to score with the man advantage during the war of attrition that is the Stanley Cup playoffs. But that isn’t typically true for teams that want to go deep, is it? The Florida Panthers converted more than 25 percent of their opportunities during their championship 2024-25 season; the Vegas Golden Knights were just south of 22 percent in 2022-23; the Colorado Avalanche converted at 32.8 percent in 2021-22. And the immediately important stat: the Bruins are at 25 percent for this series so far.
The Sabres were fourth in the NHL in 5-on-5 goals this season, but the power play is a problem, period. And Ruff could no longer push back on that fact after Game 2.
“It’s always a concern for sure. I think we’ll have to tweak some things,” Ruff told Daily Faceoff. “If you look at the last power play, we went with a little bit different look on it, we had some personnel that was missing, but we had a scheme that we thought maybe would work a little bit better. I like the amount of shots we generated. Still, some of our executions, some of our puck play, hasn’t been good enough. We stabbed a few pucks that we need to hang on to and would give us more zone time. That’s just the realization where the pressure is coming from again. Obviously at this stage, it’s going to be a conversation in the coach’s room for sure.”
The Bruins’ constant pressure and heavy forecheck is a bugaboo right now for Buffalo at all strengths. The Sabres struggled to gain and sustain zone time in Game 2. At 5-on-5, the Bruins gained an expected goal share north of 65 percent, a dominant number. The Sabres must find a way to respond better to being harassed whenever they have the puck.
“I don’t think we broke the puck out well tonight because of their forecheck, but also I just don’t think we were totally on,” Byram said. “So it definitely takes the steam out of you. Playing defense is hard. You’re grinding down low, they got big guys, they’re going to the net. You’re competing, it drains you a bit. So then it seems to be, you get out and you change, and then they regroup and come back at you. So you’ve just got to find ways to survive those moments. You’re never going to have the momentum in the entire game in the playoffs. Survive those moments and then capitalize when you’ve got the momentum.”
About that momentum: The Sabres have a 1-1 split heading to Boston later this week, but in 120 minutes of hockey, they’ve led for just three minutes and 24 seconds. Not good enough. They responded physically, especially after Charlie McAvoy’s low hip check on Beck Malenstyn, which set off a scrum-filled period. And they got the KeyBank Center crowd’s pulse rate up with late goals from Byram and Peyton Krebs, conjuring dreams of another amazing comeback, but it was too little, too late.
If Buffalo wants to take back its home-ice advantage this series, it needs to do more than make berserker pushes in the dying minutes. It will take a more complete game to best the Bruins.
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POST SPONSORED BY bet365
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