Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Martin Jones among goaltenders to watch as NHL waiver wire heats up

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuck discussed the goaltenders to watch as the NHL waiver wire heats up.

Tyler Yaremchuck: Every day Frank, 2 PM eastern time, my eyes are glued to Twitter, I’m sure your eyes are glued to your email waiting to get the waiver wire news for the day and over the next 48 hours the expectation is that there could be some pretty interesting goalies finding their way to the waiver wire.

Let’s fire up a list of who we’re keeping an eye on when it comes to goalies who could be placed on waivers over the next few days as teams finalize their rosters. Look at this list, Frank. A couple of interesting names but the one that really stands out to me is 24-year-old Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen who before the Devon Levi deal and his emergence was seen as the goalie of the future potentially in Buffalo. What are the chances that he does hit the waiver wire and what are the chances he would make it through?

Frank Seravalli: Still TBD, I doubt that he would make it through but the interesting thing about the Buffalo Sabres is that they have enough cap space that they could actually carry three goalies and not have to make a decision on Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. It’s kind of a tough spot to be in because you’re thinking Comrie is the perfect guy to play in tandem with Levi and there’s been moments that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has had in his career, UPL last year rookie of the month in January. He had a two- or three-week stint with a .913 or .914 save percentage where he looked really good.

So there’s no doubt that teams are replaying some of that tape this week as they try and figure out what that waiver wire looks like. He’s just one of a few fascinating names out there, Alex Lyon got the Florida Panthers into the playoffs. There was the question when we started the playoffs, who’s going to be the guy that the Panthers run with, could have been Lyon.

Martin Jones played 48 games last year for the Seattle Kraken. He’s the third guy for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I don’t think that their plan is to go with three goalies and so they’re going to be patient here over the next few days to see what develops. The Montreal Canadiens haven’t made a decision yet with Cayden Primeau, they’re still talking things over internally to see what happens.

I’d expect to see David Rittich on waivers from the LA Kings, if not today then at some point over the next couple. I think they’ve made up their mind that it is going to be Copley and Talbot. Malcolm Subban has some NHL experience, Magnus Hellberg was claimed three times on waivers last year alone, and Anthony Stolarz, a fascinating situation in Florida. They signed him at 1.1 million clearly to be the backup, they liked what they saw from him in Anaheim. You’ve got Sergei Bobrovsky there at 10 million, you’ve got Spencer Knight at 4.5 million. Knight still has waiver eligibility so they actually could if they wanted to, send Knight back to the AHL (note: Knight was sent down on Friday). I don’t think that makes sense for anyone, even though he probably has a little bit of rust to knock off. But that would mean then that a decision is coming on Stolarz, so it’s an interesting way to work through the list.

I’m not looking at very many position players that are going to be generating a ton of interest. But, you know that teams will be pouring over the goalies that try and come through the waiver wire over the next five days.

Tyler Yaremchuck: Especially because there’s so many teams that have clear cut needs in that position. I know over in our Youtube chat our pal Berra brought up the Avs and the Bolts. Yeah, Vasilevskiy out eight to ten weeks. Frank there’s no way they go into the year with basically just Jonas Johansson between the pipes. The Bolts will probably try to claim one, and the Avs probably want to cover for the Francouz injury as well, right?

Frank Seravalli: One would think, although the Avs do appear to be pretty high internally on Justus Annunen, can he be the guy who backs that backs up Georgiev, who really played the lions share of the games. Fully expect the Lightning to grab someone who comes through.

We didn’t have the Kraken guys up there as well, but Joey Daccord and Chris Driedger, two and three, on the depth chart for the Kraken behind Philipp Grubauer. I’d imagine that Driedger is going to be the guy at three and a half million, but no one is taking him at that price, so that’s why he didn’t make our board.

Tyler Yaremchuck: If you are a roster nerd like me then you can’t wait to get that little notification from Frank Seravalli that the waivers for the day are out and sifting through them. Should be interesting today, maybe we’ll see a couple of these goalies hit the wire at 2 PM Eastern.

You can watch the remainder of the episode here: