The Buffalo Sabres goaltenders have little combined experience, but they also have a lot of talent and intrigue heading into the 2023-24 season.
We are halfway through August 2023, and that means the Prospects Challenge is just one month away while training camp is roughly five weeks from today. And heading into training camp 2023, the Buffalo Sabres have a trio of goaltenders with just 100 games of NHL experience combined, so naturally, they won’t rank too highly on paper.
But the group is an intriguing one, led by Devon Levi, who surprised us all with mainly solid performances during the Blue and Gold’s playoff push. While Levi couldn’t quite push Buffalo back to the playoffs for the first time since 2011, he still showed he’s more than capable of bypassing the AHL and keeping up with the ultra-fast and complex pace of the NHL game.
The only real concern here is how Levi will fare across an 82-game slate, but given his cool demeanor, it would be reckless to stack the odds against him in foresight. Cautious optimism is necessary, but let’s refrain from failing to believe in Levi just because he’s most likely stepping into a starting or 1A role after he’s proven naysayers wrong time and again, myself included.
Devon Levi leads a trio of inexperienced goaltenders for the Buffalo Sabres
Ideally, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen would have performed well enough to snag the 1A spot this season while Levi eased in as the 1B. Or at least that’s what I would have said six months ago in February. But Luukkonen didn’t show us that he was capable of being a starting goaltender in the NHL following his stagnating year in 2022-23.
There were times when Luukkonen looked like the answer between the pipes, and other times, he made you wonder why the Sabres didn’t just send him back to Rochester. Perhaps we will see a more consistent Luukkonen this season, but at this point, it’s tough to count on it after he as good as lost his spot as the 1A late last season to Levi.
Eric Comrie is the odd man out at the moment, but it wouldn’t be wise to fully count him out. Comrie played well just a pair of seasons ago with the Winnipeg Jets as the backup. So if he understands his role this year probably isn’t going to be as a starter or as a 1A, there is a chance we could see the Eric Comrie from 2021-22 as opposed to what we saw during his first season with the Buffalo Sabres.
Overall, it’s tough to give the Sabres goaltenders a good grade because of all the uncertainties and inconsistencies. So at this point, I’m giving them a D+ as a collective unit, but rest assured that this is a starting point that we may need to revisit later this season if Levi and Company prove to be effective.
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)