The Buffalo Sabres embark on their 2025-26 regular season on Thursday against the New York Rangers at KeyBank Center with a certain amount of uncertainty between the pipes, as veteran Alex Lyon will step in for injured starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. The lower-body issues that Luukkonen suffered before training camp and during the Sabres preseason home finale last week has his status in limbo, which means that head coach Lindy Ruff will lean heavily on Lyon in the month of October.
The Sabres are hoping to seize on a home-heavy schedule in October, as they start the campaign with six of their first eight games at KBC, and only one back-to-back contest. Lyon has carried the ball before in the American Hockey League, but could never earn a starter’s role in Philadelphia, where he spent four seasons. The 32-year-old played down the stretch for Florida three years ago, helping the Panthers win the final Eastern Conference playoff spot by a point over the Sabres.
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Lyon turned that opportunity into a two-year deal with Detroit, where he was the primary starter in 2024 and split duties with Cam Talbot last season. The signing with Buffalo gave the Sabres a capable Plan B in case Luukkonen regressed as he did last season, since the Sabres clearly do not want to continue to recall and demote Devon Levi multiple times and allow him to develop in AHL Rochester.
The interesting note is that tonight the Sabres will have a different goalie starting the season opener for the fourth straight season. In 2022-23, veteran Craig Anderson started and the Sabres beat the Ottawa Senators 4-1. In 2023, 22-year-old Devon Levi was given the net to start the season and lost three of first four starts, including the opener to the Rangers 5-1. Last season, after playing well in the second-half of 2024, Luukkonen started the opener of the Global Series in Prague, losing 4-1 to the Devils.
There is a great deal of pressure on the Sabres to get off to a good start and a lot of that will depend on Buffalo playing better defensively, which has been the mantra of training camp, and Lyon being up to the task of being the starter while Luukkonen is out of action.
