Things may have gotten even worse inside Buffalo's devastated locker room
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Lindy Ruff were left with a brutal Game 7 scene after Buffalo's season ended on Alex Newhook's overtime winner.
That's the image sticking with Buffalo this morning. Not just the goal, but what came after it in the room.
Mike Harrington described a devastated Sabres locker room, with most stalls empty and emotions all over the place once media got in.
He noted that Luukkonen and Tage Thompson were «very emotional,» which tells you exactly how hard this landed on the players expected to carry the biggest weight.
He also painted a sharp picture of the room itself. Alex Tuch was still sitting at his stall in full equipment, barely moving at first, before finally starting to drop his gear.
That's playoff loss in its rawest form. No speeches, no spin, no clean way to dress it up after your season dies in overtime at home.
And for Luukkonen, the pain looked even more personal because the winning goal is already getting replayed through the angle conversation.
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Joe Haggerty posted that Luukkonen was «going through some stuff» after being way off his angle on the Newhook overtime goal.
That's the part every goalie hates. One shot gets through, and suddenly the whole season can get reduced to one freeze frame.
Newhook's shot was not some overpowering blast through traffic that gave the goalie no chance. It was the kind of puck Luukkonen will probably replay in his head for a long time.
That's why the emotion in the room matters so much here. This was not just Buffalo losing a tough series. This was a team walking right up to the Eastern Conference Final, then watching one mistake, one bounce, and one overtime shot end it.
For Thompson, for Tuch, and especially for Luukkonen, that kind of ending stays with you.
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Still, this cannot all get dumped on the goalie. Buffalo pushed this series to seven, answered with that huge Game 6 in Montreal, and gave itself a real chance to finish the job.
That is what makes the room sound so hollow now. The Sabres were close enough to feel it, and close enough that one goal changed the whole summer.
Luukkonen will wear the heat because that is what happens to goalies. But the bigger truth is that Buffalo's room looked like a group that knew it had let a real opening slip away.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 18, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Zachary Bolduc | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Phillip Danault | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Greenway | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kaiden Guhle | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Beck Malenstyn | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ryan McLeod | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Owen Power | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nick Suzuki | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zach Benson | - | - | - | |
| Bowen Byram | - | - | - | |
| Cole Caufield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||