Top 3 Buffalo Sabres who will make a leap in 2023-24
By Sion Fawkes
The Buffalo Sabres are the NHL’s youngest hockey team, and three players who’ve been up and down this year have shown enough to give us optimism.
For context, this article doesn’t mean anyone’s giving up on 2022-23. But following strong performances from a few young Buffalo Sabres lately, there are three players who deserve special recognition.
As a disclaimer, the following three players haven’t played lights out, nor have they become one of the league’s better players. Not yet, anyway.
However, each have made sound improvements over the past couple of weeks throughout what has been an up and down season for them, but a season that has, overall, trended north development-wise, and are poised for a leap in 2023-24. Let’s meet these players.
3 Buffalo Sabres who will make a leap next season
1 – Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
If the Buffalo Sabres were to go with a full-time starting goaltender in 2023-24, it’s most likely going to be Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Talk about an up-and-down year, but Luukkonen has shown the ability to bounce back every time he’s faced serious adversity.
On February 21st, he allowed four goals in the game’s first 13 minutes, prompting head coach Don Granato to yank him early in favor of Craig Anderson. On March 2nd in Buffalo’s 7-1 loss to the Boston Bruins, he ended up breaking his stick over the crossbar in frustration.
But these past two games, despite them being losses, he’s been brilliant, stopping 60 out of 65 shots on goal, good for a 0.923 save percentage. And we’ve seen Luukkonen have such stretches at various points this season.
Goaltenders often take longer to develop than skaters. And for Luukkonen, that development predominantly required time in Rochester, before he’d see a season full of ups and downs in the NHL, but improvement nonetheless.
The next step? Consistency, and it’s something that you will see more of as the 2022-23 season winds down in his last handful of starts. At least if his defense holds.