Buffalo's crease is empty: Luukkonen tweaks a lower body issue, Lyon already out, and Ellis is all that is left
By Ashkon Baharlou
Buffalo has one healthy goaltender on its roster. That goaltender is 25-year-old Colten Ellis, who has never started an NHL game. The Sabres open the season Thursday at Columbus. Five days from now.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen left Saturday's preseason finale against Pittsburgh at 3:47 of the third period and did not come back. Coach Lindy Ruff called it a lower-body issue after the game: "He tweaked something and we just got him off. Didn't want to take any chances." Ruff gave no timeline.
Luukkonen stopped 15 of 17 shots before he left. Ellis came in and stopped all six shots he faced. The Penguins won 3-1 at KeyBank Center.
Two nights earlier, Alex Lyon left Thursday's game at Detroit with an upper-body injury. Ruff said Saturday that Lyon will "miss a few days, for sure." That means Buffalo's presumed tandem — Luukkonen and Lyon — both left preseason games within 48 hours of each other. The preseason was supposed to settle the crease. It emptied it instead.
The only option left
Ellis has played all four preseason games in relief: 41 saves on 44 shots, a .932 save percentage per Sabres.com. He has done everything asked of him in a small sample. He is also a career minor-leaguer who has never carried an NHL crease, and he is now the only healthy option on the roster with an opener four nights away.
Ruff's language is worth watching. He called Luukkonen's exit "just" a tweak and stressed they "didn't want to take any chances." That is the same precautionary register he used when Jiri Kulich exited Thursday's Detroit game for precautionary reasons. Precautionary is good news only if it stays that way. The next 72 hours — practice participation, a roster move, any update on a timeline — decide whether this is caution or something more. If Luukkonen is not on the ice by midweek, the Sabres will need a second healthy goalie from somewhere before Columbus.
What the model says about the injured No. 1
The injury would matter less if the crease had been solid. On the Whiteboard, it was already Buffalo's thinnest phase. Luukkonen's 2025-26 profile graded "Below avg" with a 25.8 goalie score and -0.23 gsax60 (goals saved above expected per 60 minutes) across 55 games played. That is the model's read on a full season of work: an average starter would have let in fewer.
That does not make Luukkonen the problem. A 25.8 grade is a statement about the depth behind him more than the man in front: it says the margin for error was already thin before either goalie got hurt. Buffalo built a season around a crease the model read as below average, and five days before the opener it has neither member of that tandem healthy.
Ellis and Lyon are not in the tagged set — Lyon and Ellis are new additions to the Whiteboard's goalie data, so there is no model grade to compare. What exists from the outside is the preseason: four relief appearances, 41 of 44, and a coach willing to throw him into a 3-1 third period without warning. That is a small sample, and a good one. It is not a plan.
The pressure point, stated plainly
Buffalo's season does not open in five days. It opens in five days with one healthy goalie. The model's numbers already flagged the crease as the softest of the team's three phases; losing both goaltenders before opening night turns a question mark into the season's first real test.
Watch the practice ice. If Luukkonen skates, this column becomes a story about a scare. If he does not, the Sabres will be shopping for a goalie before Columbus — and shopping for one is never where a team wants to be on the week the season starts.
Source: Sabres.com / Jane McNally (NHL.com, Sept 26). Stats from the Whiteboard's live 2025-26 goalie profile except where Sabres.com figures are quoted.