'That's part of the growth' | Sabres earn hard-fought win over Kings behind Luukkonen's shutout 

LOS ANGELES – Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen expressed gratitude following his first shutout of the season, a 1-0 decision over the Los Angeles Kings at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday.

Luukkonen – back in goal after missing the last two games with an injury – came up with timely stops throughout a 23-save effort. But the selflessness of the players in front of him, in his mind, was just as crucial to the end result.

“Coming back and getting that effort level from the guys was awesome,” Luukkonen said.

The Sabres gutted out a low-scoring victory over one of the NHL’s stingiest defensive teams on the strength of special teams (1-for-3 on the power play and 5-for-5 on the penalty kill), defensive sacrifice (18 blocked shots) and clutch play from their goaltender.

It was a resounding response to their previous game, a 5-2 loss in Philadelphia on Saturday, on a night when they were without both their leading goal scorer in Tage Thompson (day to day) and one of their top penalty killers in Jordan Greenway (week to week).

The win moved the Sabres back into the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference and improved their record back to .500 at 9-9-1. Lindy Ruff pointed to the nature of this victory – a tight, low-scoring game – as being of particular importance at this early stage of the season.

“I think it means a lot to our team,” Ruff said. “That’s part of the growth, is you’ve got to get comfortable in a game like that where it’s tight.

“… I thought our compete on the puck was where it needed to be to win a hockey game and their compete was hard, too. It was a hard game from start to finish for both teams.”

The scored was tied at 0-0 and shots were 12-12 through 40 minutes of play, a testament to both teams’ willingness to stay above the puck defensively and get into shot lanes.

The Sabres finally broke through 38 seconds into the third period when, on their third power play of the night, Jason Zucker deflected Rasmus Dahlin’s shot from the point past Kings goaltender David Rittich. It was the 200th goal of Zucker’s career.

“They’re a tight team,” Zucker said of the Kings. “It’s a stingy game every time you play them. We knew that going in and it was that the entire night. It’s never going to be a pretty one against a team like that, it seems like.”

The Sabres killed four penalties when the score was still 0-0. On the third of those kills, Beck Malenstyn blocked a slap shot from Adrian Kempe and had to be helped off the ice. He was back in time for the next kill less than four minutes later, which saw him block yet another shot.

Malenstyn was one of several penalty killers who stepped up in Greenway’s absence. Ryan McLeod and Connor Clifton both exceeded six minutes shorthanded. Zach Benson skated a season-high 3:21 shorthanded and tied up a potential scoring chance in the slot.

The penalty kill success carried over to the end of the game. The Kings pulled Rittich following an icing with 2:37 remaining and spent over two straight minutes in the Buffalo zone with a 6-on-5 advantage. Despite the long possession, they did not have a single shot attempt reach Luukkonen during that span.

“I feel like we fought well,” Luukkonen said. “Everybody did their job. It doesn’t always go perfect and you kind of have to battle through it. I feel like the guys were blocking shots as I said, they were taking away the backdoor chances, so overall it was just a good effort.”

Though his defenders kept the puck from reaching him late, Luukkonen made timely saves throughout the game to keep the Sabres from falling behind. He stopped Anze Kopitar on a point-blank shot less than a minute into the contest and, later in the first period, made a sprawling effort to get his right skate on a backdoor attempt from Kempe.

Luukkonen had been out since exiting the Sabres' game against Montreal on Nov. 11 with his injury. He had won his previous three starts, which nabbed him NHL Third Star of the Week honors.

The Sabres were cautious not to rush Luukkonen back onto the ice, an approach that was vindicated with his performance on Wednesday.

“He’s an unbelievable goalie,” Zucker said. “I love the way he plays. He’s calm in the net. There’s a poise to his game that I think carries through our D corps into our forwards and throughout the entire bench, so it’s nice to see.”

Here’s more from the win in Los Angeles.

1. Dahlin extended his point streak to seven games with the primary assist on Zucker’s goal. He has four goals and six assists in that span.

2. The Sabres have now scored at least one power-play goal in seven consecutive games. They’ve scored on the power play in all but one of the last 11 games, going 11-for-37 in that span (29.7 percent).

“You look at that goal, Dahls did a great job getting in, Zucker did a great job of being in front,” Ruff said. “There’s a lot of goals now where we’re getting it up top and we’re shooting through traffic and we’re getting rewarded for it.”

3. With Thompson remaining out, the Sabres shuffled their lines coming off the loss in Philadelphia. That included a move for rookie Jiri Kulich to center on a line with Zucker and Jack Quinn. Kulich is a natural center but had played on the wing to start his NHL career.

“I thought he handled that well,” Ruff said. “I thought all four lines were giving us a good night, were doing the right thing at the right time and making the plays they needed to make whether it was in the defensive zone, neutral zone, or up ice.”

Up next

The Sabres continue their California trip against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Friday. Coverage on MSG begins at 9:30 p.m. with puck drop scheduled for 10.