Report: Sabres’ Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen dealing with offseason injury
There may be more to the Buffalo Sabres‘ signing of Alexandar Georgiev than first thought to be.
The Bulgarian goaltender signed a one-year, $825,000 contract with the Sabres on Thursday, and apparently it’s because Buffalo is need of some goaltending depth in the wake of an offseason injury to starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, according to The Athletic reporter Matthew Fairburn.
The Sabres signed Alexandar Georgiev to a one-year deal worth $825,000. The move is, in part, in response to an injury to Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen: https://t.co/Zm44DxCqPm
— Matthew Fairburn (@MatthewFairburn) September 12, 2025Luukkonen reported to Sabres’ training camp this week with an injury, which was described as a “tweak”. The cause of the injury is not known, as is the severity of it and how long Luukkonen is expected to be out.
With Georgiev being signed, the Sabres now have three goalies with some NHL experience to fill in for Luukkonen while he rehabs his injury. Along with Georgiev, Buffalo has Alex Lyon signed to a two-year contract with a $1.5 million cap hit, as well as Devon Levi in their pipeline who has played 39 NHL games.
After a breakout season in 2023-24, Luukkonen struggled with the Sabres in 2024-25 with a 24-24-5 record, an .887 save percentage, and a -4.83 5v5 goals saved above expected in 55 games.
Georgiev is coming off the worst season of his NHL career, which saw him disappoint with both the Colorado Avalanche and the San Jose Sharks. With Colorado, he struggled to find his game to the point where he was costing the team a playoff spot, with his 8-7-0 record, .874 SV% and -9.77 5v5 GSAx in 18 games just wasn’t good enough for the team.
That caused the Avalanche to pivot quickly to find another goaltender in December 2024, eventually dealing Georgiev to the Sharks. Georgiev’s play did improve with the Sharks with a 0.03 5v5 GSAx, but his boxcar stats remained the same with a 7-19-4 record and an .875 SV% in 31 games. On the season as a whole, he had a 15-26-4 record, an .875 SV% and a -9.74 5v5 GSAx in 49 games.
The Sabres spent a good chunk of the summer clearing out cap space by trading Connor Clifton, Sam Lafferty and, most notably, J.J. Peterka, with the latter netting them Michael Kesselring and Josh Doan. On top of signing Lyon, they also added Justin Danforth in free agency. Buffalo currently has just under $5.2 million in salary cap space with no restricted free agents left to sign.