With a crowded goalie room, the Buffalo Sabres decided to give Devon Levi the first few games to start, but now he’s day to day with lower body soreness. After Eric Comrie, Buffalo’s 2017 second-round pick, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, finally heard his name called.

“Until you're an established NHL goalie, you're on call,” said head coach Don Granato. “And that's all these three guys are. They're on call."

Ever since the Sabres decided to embrace a goalie trifecta, that’s exactly what Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen has done. Buffalo’s win against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday was not only his first appearance in 20 days after a preseason loss in Columbus, but also his second regular season start in the Sabres last 15 games.

“I think [the] COVID year, you know, something like kind of similar [to] being on a taxi squad. I'm kind of having a lot of days between games sometimes,” said Luukkonen.

In order to be ready for his name to be called, Luukkonen has learned to maximize every day in between.

“You always look at the process and he kept himself very prepared,” said Granato. “We could tell that. So we went into the games with confidence that the process for [Luukkonen] was right on target. He never lost focus. He never hung his head.”

“We have a lot of ice time, a lot of guys that want to get better,” said Luukkonen. “A lot of young guys. So, you always have [a] shooter out there to do different drills and do different stuff.”

But for the 24-year-old Finnish goaltender, just four words in his native language wrapped around his water bottle have provided a constant for Luukkonen — no matter the cadence of his starts.

“It says, ‘be big,’ or like it's this ‘big, big calm and just see the puck,’ in Finnish. It's something I tape to my bottle and every time I take a drink, I read those three words. And it's something I try to build my game around and [it’s a little reminder] for yourself to kind of lean on to during the game.”

The pandemic’s unique challenges invited Luukkonen to delve into his mental fortitude.

“Those games when there was no fans in the AHL and you play the same teams, it's really kind of mentally tough for a goalie to prepare for those games," said Luukkonen. "So I was working with a mental coach and he told me about that. And that would be something that might help, and then I don't know if it helps or not, but it's something that keeps your mind in the game. And you have three points, which you try to kind of follow your own game. It's been good for me to this to this point, so I've [just been keeping] with it.”