The Sudbury Wolves looked to their crease when they were on the clock picking third overall in the 2018 CHL Import Draft.
Their pick, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, a 6-4 goalie from Finland who was taken 54th overall in the 2017 NHL Draft by the Buffalo Sabres.
“He’s an outstanding goalie number one, he’s a big kid," said Wolves GM Rob Papineau.
“Obviously the Buffalo Sabres are very high on him and when we looked through all the imports that were available to us we just felt he was the best player and clearly the best goalie.”
With the import draft there is always a chance the player will not report, but Sudbury has had some pretty good success recently.
Three out of the past four import picks to the Nickel City have put on the blue and white.
Another good sign, Sudbury had the third overall pick in 2015, that pick was Dmitry Sokolov, indeed a franchise impact player.
“All of our communication for the most part has been directly with Buffalo,” said Papineau. “These guys are going into their rookie orientation camps this week and we really want the player to focus on that, that’s the priority. He’s an NHL draft pick and he’s got a goal to make an NHL team. The people in Buffalo are extremely professional so the communication has been very positive and now we’ll have to go to another level of communication now the draft is over.”
The biggest difference between Luukkonen and the last four picks for Sudbury, he’s 19 and turning 20 in March of 2019, so he won’t be around for long if he comes.
But it’s clear the Wolves saw his value as high enough to ignore the age.
Papineau says the import draft is a whirlwind, it happens so fast you can barely sip your coffee in between picks.
“The import draft, there’s a lot of conversations that you have, there’s a lot of discussions that you have building up to it. Then when it happens even just watching it based on all of the discussions that you’ve had with so many different people about so many different players, as you actually watch it doesn’t necessarily lay out that way either,” said Papineau.
But the player they wanted was the player they got.
“This year was a little bit different than in the past because we had the ability to take what we felt was the best player available, because we do have potentially another two imports that we will be here. Part of that will depend on the decisions that Tampa Bay makes, but there is a lot of uncertainty right now around what is going to be here in September,” said Papineau.
Sudbury has Zack Malik and Alexey Lipanov on their roster.
Malik is almost a guarantee to be back but Lipanov could be in the AHL if that’s what Tampa Bay wants.
Papineau says he’s liked Luukkonen since he was a scout in the NHL and is thrilled to add a much-needed veteran presence in net, which was something many thought they would address through trade.
Luukkonen is currently on loan to play for HPK of the Liiga, the Finish Elite League and previously played in the second highest hockey league in Finland for LeKi.
He was the highest European goalie drafted in the 2017 NHL draft and second goalie taken overall.
Luukkonen agreed to a three-year entry level contract with the Sabres two weeks ago.
