Why didn’t the Buffalo Sabres start Devon Levi against Arizona?

The Buffalo Sabres didn’t start Devon Levi in their 2-0 loss to the Arizona Coyotes last night, and there seems to be confusion on that front.

As you may have noticed, the Buffalo Sabres rolled with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen at goaltender instead of the hot hand in Devon Levi. And in the NHL, we’re often taught that you roll with the “hot hand” as opposed to starting either the backup or in the Sabres case, the other goaltender.

And this is true for most instances, but there is also one major exception to the rule: Goaltenders rarely if ever start during a back-to-back, especially when that back-to-back technically occurs within 24 hours of one another – the Sabres played at 10:00 pm against Vegas and 9:00 pm against Arizona.

Lance Lysowski of Buffalo News said it best when he wrote the following in his postgame piece regarding the situation:

"“NHL teams don’t play goalies in back-to-back situations. Their sports science and medical staffs have the data to support that decision. It’s done in the playoffs or when a goalie has a minimal workload during the first game, but Levi faced 49 scoring chances Friday, according to Natural Stat Trick.”"

Source: Observations: Sabres suffer another ‘frustrating’ loss after UPL’s game-changing mistake

Buffalo Sabres had no choice but to start Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen

While it’s true Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen didn’t have a bad game statistically, as he stopped 20 of 22 shots on goal for a 0.909 save percentage in just under 57 minutes of play, it’s also true that he contributed to the unfortunate turning point of the game. It was the latest mishap in what has become yet another cold streak for Luukkonen, who has a 6-7-1 record, a 2.92 GAA, and a 0.901 save percentage on the season.

Luukkonen was recently named the starting goaltender over Eric Comrie while the Sabres sent Devon Levi to Rochester, but after the 24-year-old came down with an illness earlier this month, Levi returned and has since played a stellar game in the crease. Meanwhile, since that announcement, Luukkonen is 0-4-0 with a 3.92 GAA, and a 0.850 save percentage.

Overall, Luukkonen hasn’t been the same goaltender since just before and after returning from an illness, and he sustained several hot and cold streaks last season, if you remember correctly. It looked for a minute as though Luukkonen was evolving as a player, but that hasn’t been the case. Nevertheless, when the Buffalo Sabres have a back-to-back, or if they play Devon Levi for a string of games in proximity to one another, Luukkonen will get his starts.

(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference, QuantHockey, and NHL.com)