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Comrie Expecting To Be Waived

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Having to place both Tyson Jost and Jacob Bryson on waivers to make space on their roster over the last several weeks, the Buffalo Sabres still find themselves in a difficult situation. They still maintain a full 23-man roster, and will once again need to make room, as veteran center Zemgus Girgensons is nearing activation off of the injured reserve.

One of the clearer choices in who will ultimately sent down is goaltender Eric Comrie, who has not played in a game since earlier this month on December 5th. Seeing only a total of seven games up to this point, Comrie carries a 1-5-0 record on the year, with a .863 SV% and a 4.01 GAA. With young netminders Devon Levi and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen carrying the bulk of the load between the pipes, it makes little sense for the Sabres to continue with three netminders.

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Don Granato Out With Illness, Seth Appert To Serve As Interim Coach

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  • The Sabres announced (Twitter link) that head coach Don Granato will miss today’s game versus Columbus due to illness. Instead of using an assistant in the interim head coaching role, Buffalo has recalled Rochester’s head coach Seth Appert who will be in charge behind the bench.  Appert is in his fourth season with the Amerks who also play tonight but will have assistants Vinny Prospal and Nathan Paetsch split the coaching duties for that contest.

Jost Sent To Amerks

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  • The Sabres announced that they’ve assigned center Tyson Jost to AHL Rochester. The move comes as little surprise after he cleared waivers earlier today on the heels of notching just four points in his first 29 games while carrying a $2MM contract.  With Ryan Johnson’s quick recall following the move, Buffalo will need to make another roster move to activate Zemgus Girgensons off IR; he could be cleared to return on Saturday.

Tyson Jost, Michael Hutchinson Clear Waivers

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Dec. 29: Jost and Hutchinson both passed through waivers unclaimed, per Friedman.

Dec. 28: According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, forward Tyson Jost and goaltender Michael Hutchinson have been placed on waivers by the Buffalo Sabres and Detroit Red Wings, respectively.

Jost, 25, arrives on waivers in the midst of a difficult contract season in Buffalo. The pending unrestricted free agent is making $2MM against the cap but has not provided much return on investment for the Sabres. He’s scored just four points in 29 games this season and has seen his role on the team erode compared to last year.

Last season, Jost averaged 13:20 time-on-ice per game and saw over a minute of penalty-killing time per game as well.

So far this season, Jost has dropped under a minute short-handed and has seen his overall ice time drop dangerously close to the 10 minute plateau.

That decline in role has come alongside his significantly reduced production, and now he’ll be made available to all 31 other teams.

It’s a relatively quick turnaround for Jost, a player who just last night skated as the Sabres’ number-one center in the absence of Tage Thompson. But in a different sense, Jost’s return to the AHL (which seems likely as his $2MM cap hit makes claiming him a difficult prospect for most teams across the league) has been a long time coming. The former top prospect played well at the BCHL and NCAA levels but has struggled to make his mark on the NHL.

Jost’s ability to play a two-way game meant that earlier in his career, Jost could be trusted to play in a bottom-six role at the NHL level. As a result, he never got to play in the AHL on any sort of extended basis. That meant that he never got the chance to learn how to score on a consistent basis as a professional, and his offensive game never quite took off.

Now he’ll likely land with the Sabres’ AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans, and get the chance to potentially play in a starring offensive role that he never received in the NHL. For the Sabres, sending him to the AHL would save the team some cap space and would also clear a roster spot to be used on a different player.

As for Hutchinson, he’s already cleared waivers this season (for his original assignment to the AHL) and has been through the process numerous times before in his career as a third goalie.

As an established veteran netminder in a league perpetually in need of quality goaltending, there is a chance Hutchinson gets claimed. His league-minimum cap hit is easy for most teams to fit into their financial picture, although his AHL performance (5-7-1 .895 save percentage) is not hugely encouraging.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Sabres Reassign Olivier Nadeau To ECHL

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  • The Sabres demoted forward prospect Olivier Nadeau from AHL Rochester to ECHL Jacksonville on Friday morning, per a team release. Nadeau, 20, has been a frequent healthy scratch in Rochester, playing five out of a possible 26 games in his first pro season. He’s suited up just twice this month and has not played since December 16. While the 2021 fourth-round pick recorded his first professional goal, the lack of playing time is surely not a positive thing for his development. He’ll head to a lower-level club where he could potentially lock down a top-six role after notching over a point per game in the past three QMJHL seasons.

Sabres Activate Tage Thompson, Assign Ryan Johnson To AHL

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4:30 PM: The Buffalo Sabres have recalled Ryan Johnson from the AHL, proving that these moves were merely paper transactions.

10:00 AM: The Sabres activated center Tage Thompson on Friday after a very short stint on the non-roster list, according to a team release. With no existing room on the 23-man roster to execute the move, the team assigned rookie defenseman Ryan Johnson to AHL Rochester to accommodate Thompson’s return.

Thompson was a late scratch for Buffalo’s last contest, a 4-1 loss against the Bruins on Wednesday, for personal reasons. After exceeding the 23-player limit on the active roster over the course of the holiday freeze, the Sabres moved Thompson to the non-roster list before 11:59 p.m. that night to be compliant when the freeze lifted Thursday morning.

The transaction suggests Thompson will be available for Saturday’s game against the Blue Jackets. Buffalo GM Kevyn Adams will need to make an additional roster move to activate Sabres mainstay Zemgus Girgensons from injured reserve, as he’s expected to return from a lower-body injury that’s kept him out since late November. That will likely be assigning center Tyson Jost to Rochester this afternoon, assuming he clears waivers.

Thompson, 26, had four points in his last five games, including a three-point effort in the Sabres’ 9-3 drubbing of the Maple Leafs last week. In ten games since returning from a wrist injury that cost him nearly three weeks, Thompson has struggled with three goals and seven points and a -5 rating.

Johnson, the Sabres’ 31st overall pick in 2019, returns to Rochester to continue his development. The University of Minnesota product had a strong training camp and has looked good in 20 games of NHL action this year. He hasn’t provided much in the way of offense with two assists, and he’s received zero usage on special teams, but he’s graded out well possession-wise in his even strength minutes with a 51.7% Corsi share and an expected plus-minus rating of +0.1. Only Rasmus Dahlin has controlled more shot attempts at even strength than Johnson.

In fact, Johnson has graded out so well defensively that there’s some warranted speculation that the Sabres will make an additional roster move in order to bring him back up to the NHL. Given his waiver-exempt status, though, assigning him to the minors is the most convenient way to make room for both Girgensons and Thompson to suit up tomorrow.

The Sabres would need to make an additional waiver placement or trade to create room to recall Johnson again. The team’s other waiver-exempt talents – Zach Benson, Devon Levi, John-Jason Peterka, Owen Power, and Jack Quinn – have solidified full-time roles, and sending any of them down would be extremely detrimental to a team that needs a major winning streak to get back into the playoff conversation.

In his first nine games with Rochester, the 22-year-old had four assists and a +2 rating. He has not played an AHL contest since being recalled to Buffalo in early November.

Sabres Place Tage Thompson On Non-Roster List

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The Sabres placed star center Tage Thompson on the non-roster list after he was absent from last night’s 4-1 loss to the Bruins for personal reasons. While the move was announced Thursday, it was likely filed with the league in order to reduce the Sabres’ active roster to 23 players before the holiday roster freeze lifted last night at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Tage Thompson Out Tonight Due To Personal Reasons

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  • Heading into tonight’s action against the Boston Bruins, the Buffalo Sabres announced they would be without star player, Tage Thompson, as he will be out due to personal reasons. Although his presence is heavily missed in the Sabres lineup, it has ultimately been a disappointing season for Thompson up to this point by his standards, scoring nine goals and 19 points in 26 games.

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Zemgus Girgensons Close To Returning, Remains Out Wednesday

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  • Sabres forward Zemgus Girgensons is close to a return but won’t suit up Wednesday against the Bruins, head coach Don Granato said (via WGR Sports Radio 550’s Paul Hamilton). The 6-foot-2 Latvian will miss his 16th game with a lower-body injury sustained November 24 against the Penguins. His pending IR activation is creating some uncertainty for the Sabres, who will need to demote or trade a player to create space on the roster. Before getting injured, the longest-tenured Sabre had two goals in 20 games while playing a fourth-line role.

Examining Buffalo’s Pending Roster Crunch

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It’s fair to say that the Sabres have underachieved relative to expectations this season, leading some to wonder if a big shakeup could be on the way.  That might not be the case just yet but it certainly feels like a small one could be coming simply out of necessity.

Buffalo currently has 24 players on its active roster, one over the maximum of 23.  They’re allowed to be in that situation during the roster freeze but once that lifts on Thursday, their hand is going to be forced and someone will have to come off the roster.  On top of that, Zemgus Girgensons is nearing a return; he skated in practice for a few days leading up to the holiday break.  He’s currently on injured reserve so when he’s ready to be activated, that’s another roster spot that will need to be opened up.

While the Sabres have several waiver-exempt players, it seems unlikely that most of them will be sent down.  Up front, Zach Benson can’t go to the minors, only to junior and at this point, he’s expected to stay up with Buffalo.  John-Jason Peterka is tied for third in team scoring so he’s not going anywhere.  Jack Quinn, meanwhile, just returned and was a full-time regular last season so it’s unlikely he’d be sent down for any sort of extended stint.

On the back end, Owen Power clearly isn’t going anywhere either while Ryan Johnson has been a regular most nights lately; on merit, he shouldn’t lose his spot.  Dropping him off the roster would also leave them with just six available blueliners which isn’t an ideal situation to be in.

In goal, Devon Levi is waiver-exempt and has been sent down once already this season.  However, since returning from his brief stint with AHL Rochester, he has a .916 SV% in six games, a mark that should see him being deployed once again as their starting netminder.  That makes him a non-desirable candidate to go down as well.

Faced with a variety of less-than-ideal demotion candidates from their waiver-exempt pieces, the next option might be the waiver wire.  They’ve already gone that route recently with Jacob Bryson while Riley Stillman is also receiving a seven-figure salary to play for the Americans as well.

In terms of who could be options on that front, Victor Olofsson’s future with Buffalo has long been in question; had it not been for Quinn’s injury, some had wondered if he’d even be with the team at this point.  He’s playing fourth-line minutes at even strength right now and with a $4.75MM price tag, it’s fair to say he won’t be claimed.  If they’re looking for a way to keep as much depth as possible around, waiving and demoting him would accomplish that.  With his contract, they’d have to take a player back if they traded him which wouldn’t solve the current roster logjam.

Tyson Jost might be on unstable ground as well from a waiver perspective.  He now finds himself out of the top 12 with Quinn and Tage Thompson recently returning from their injuries.  He has just four points in 28 games so far this season, a far cry from the 22 he had in 59 contests after being claimed from Minnesota in 2022-23.  Speculatively, his $2MM cap charge might be enough to dissuade a team from picking him up on waivers although it’s worth noting that the Sabres didn’t balk at that cap hit a year ago.  Meanwhile, a trade that didn’t involve taking a contract back as well also seems unlikely so going that route isn’t likely to clear a roster spot.

Eric Robinson, who was just acquired from Columbus, is another option.  He has already cleared waivers once this season and considering the trade that brought him over was for about as close to nothing as possible, it’s unlikely he’d be claimed as well.  Waiving and demoting him could ultimately wind up clearing the conditional seventh-round pick they gave up for him since it’s contingent on NHL games played for the rest of the season.  While he has played well in limited action so far, Robinson is a viable option to land on waivers.

Then there’s Eric Comrie.  The netminder has been in the third-string role a lot this season and his numbers when he has played (4.01 GAA, .863 SV%) haven’t been great.  On the other hand, he has been a regular backup for the last couple of years.  At $1.8MM, he might pass through waivers but if Buffalo was willing to retain on the contract – they have all three retention slots open – they might be able to get at least a late-round pick in a trade for him.  While that would weaken their goalie depth, they do still have veteran Dustin Tokarski in the fold who can play in a pinch if need be.

Teams don’t like to be put in a situation where they’re going to be forced to make a move.  But the Sabres are about to be in that spot with at least one spot to open on Thursday when the roster freeze ends and another one soon after when Girgensons returns.  GM Kevyn Adams has some decisions to make as a result.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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