Sabres close road trip in Los Angeles with Luukkonen back in goal

Buffalo (6-4-3) wraps up its road trip Saturday at Crypto.com Arena against Los Angeles (4-6-2), with puck drop at 4 p.m. EDT. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is in line to start for the Sabres, which would be his first appearance since Oct. 24, when he made 30 saves on 34 shots in Washington.

The Sabres are 2-0-1 on the trip after beating the Ducks 7-6 in Anaheim on Thursday, when Tage Thompson had a hat trick. This is the first meeting of the season between the clubs, and the Kings are 0-3-0 at home.

Sabres.com highlighted the work of Buffalo's fourth line during the trip. Citing Natural Stat Trick, the club puts high-danger chances at 8-2 in Buffalo's favour at 5-on-5 when Beck Malenstyn and Tyson Kozak have been on the ice together, not counting Kozak's goal Thursday.

Peyton Krebs played with that pair until moving up the lineup Thursday, and Sam Carrick filled the spot after sitting out four games with an injury. Kozak's first goal of the season came off a Carrick feed in the first period in Anaheim, with Malenstyn screening in front.

"It's a fun, just simple brand of hockey when all three of us can be on the same page," Malenstyn told Sabres.com. "Just try to get pucks in behind them, play with our speed, work the puck down low, try to finish most of our shifts in the offensive zone, set other lines up."

"That part of our game I think has been missing," coach Lindy Ruff said of the offensive-zone cycling, "but these last couple games, we've done some really good work in the O-zone."

Noah Ostlund, who has four goals this season after scoring in Anaheim, sat out Friday's practice as a maintenance day and is expected to play.

Buffalo's short skate Friday focused largely on 6-on-5 play, after the Ducks scored twice late with an extra attacker on Thursday to make it a one-goal game. "We just made some mistakes that we don't typically make," Ruff said.