Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has been injured.

This is the last thing you want to hear when you're only a few weeks removed from the start of the 2025-26 National Hockey League regular season, especially if you're a team that has missed the playoffs 14 seasons in a row.

This past week it was revealed that Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has been injured, a revelation that helps makes sense of some of the recent moves coming from the Sabres. There has been no timeline provided when it comes to a potential return from injury for Luukkonen, but obviously this is a disaster for the Sabres who have been in desperate need of a good season for far too long.

Back in July the Sabres made the move to sign free agent goaltender Alex Lyon to a 2 year contract with an average annual value and cap hit of $1.5 million per season, a move that made sense at the time given that Lyon makes for a very experienced backup. He has appeared in 74 games for the Detroit Red Wings over the past two seasons and boasts a career 2.98 goals against average and .902 save percentage over 113 NHL games.

What made a lot less sense however was the Sabres decision to sign veteran goaltender Alexander Georgiev last week, inking him to a one year deal at an average annual value and cap hit of $825,000 per season. The move was especially confusing when you consider that the 29 year old Georgiev was coming off of the worst season of his NHL career, one that saw him traded by the Colorado Avalanche to the San Jose Sharks after a disastrous stretch of play. Georgiev recorded a 3.38 goals against average and a .874 save percentage over 18 games with the Avalanche and things did not improve with the Sharks where he had a 3.88 goals against average and a .875 save percentage over 31 games with the Sharks.

We now know of course that the signing of Georgiev was likely directly linked to the news surrounding Luukkonen, and that appears to be a bad sign in its own right from my perspective. That the Sabres felt they needed to sign Georgiev suggests to me that they expect Luukkonen will miss some time as a result of his injury, and the only question that remains now is just how much time will that be?

Stay tuned for more on this developing story.