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Eric Comrie "Healthy And Ready To Play" For Buffalo Sabres

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Second and third place went to Jack Hughes and Rasmus Dahlin, two of the most impressive young players (and first-overall picks) in the league. Hughes, 21, leads the league in even-strength goals with 21 and has already matched the career-high he set last season with 26 overall. Five of those came last week as he continues to lead the New Jersey Devils into contender status in the Metropolitan Division. Because of the attention that Tage Thompson is getting as an emerging superstar, Dahlin’s season for the Buffalo Sabres may actually be going a little bit under the radar. The 22-year-old now has 44 points in 36 games, putting him in real contention for the Norris Trophy, given how important he is to the Sabres every night. His 1.22 points-per-game rate trails only Erik Karlsson among NHL defenders this season.

  • Speaking of Buffalo, there’s a bit of a roster crunch happening for the Sabres, as they try to figure out the goaltending situation. Eric Comrie’s conditioning stint is over and he told reporters including Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News that he is healthy and ready to play. As of right now, Comrie remains on injured reserve and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who has played so well in his absence, is still on the roster as an emergency call-up. That won’t be allowed to continue, and the Sabres will have to make a decision one way or another. Send Luukkonen down, put Comrie (or Craig Anderson) on waivers to send him down, or carry three goaltenders on the active roster.

Latest On Eric Comrie

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  • Buffalo Sabres goaltender Eric Comrie’s conditioning stint with the AHL’s Rochester Americans has ended, per Noted Hockey’s Joe Yerdon. Comrie had been in Rochester as part of his recovery process for the lower-body injury he suffered in November. Comrie signed a two-year, $1.8MM AAV deal with the Sabres in the offseason, and has had an up-and-down season, with a hot start and some games he’d like to have back. Overall, his numbers aren’t great (.887 save percentage through 11 games) but the Sabres as a whole seem to have turned a corner from their slow start to the season, so perhaps a healthy Comrie can benefit from the team’s overall improvement.

Latest On Jokiharju, Kulich, Rosen

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  • Buffalo Sabres coach Don Granato told the media, including the Olean Times Herald’s Bill Hoppe, that defenseman Henri Jokiharju could return to play in a week. The 23-year-old defenseman was placed on injured reserve on December 11th.  Should Jokiharju return at that point, the Sabres will likely need to create room on their roster, as they’re currently running a full roster of 23 players. Since they have seven defensemen currently active, it stands to reason that a depth blueliner such as Kale Clague would be the odd man out.
  • The Sabres have announced that two of the team’s top prospects, Jiri Kulich and Isak Rosen, have been re-assigned to the team’s AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans. Both Kulich and Rosen are returning from the World Junior Championships. Kulich has had a wildly successful year in the AHL so far, scoring 16 points in 24 games as an 18-year-old rookie, while Rosen has been solid, scoring 15 points in 25 games.

Tage Thompson Named Third Star For December

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With the calendar turning to January, the NHL announced its Three Stars for December.  Taking home the top spot was Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin, whose 13 goals last month moved him up into second in all-time NHL goals as he now sits at 806, 88 behind Wayne Gretzky for the record.  Oilers center Connor McDavid was the second star after leading the league in goals (14) and points (31) while tying for the lead in assists (17) and is the first player this season to record 30 points in a month.  Sabres center Tage Thompson was the third star after picking up 22 points in 11 games while helping Buffalo pick up eight wins to get back within striking distance of a Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference.

Sabres Assign Eric Comrie To AHL On A Conditioning Stint

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Despite having the top-scoring offense in the league with an average of four goals per game, the Sabres find themselves eight points out of a playoff spot heading into today’s action.  However, they could be getting some much-needed help between the pipes soon as Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News reports (Twitter link) that Buffalo has sent goaltender Eric Comrie to AHL Rochester on a conditioning stint and he will make the start against Toronto this afternoon.

Comrie is in his first season with the team after signing a two-year, $3.6MM deal with them back in July.  The 27-year-old sustained a lower-body injury back in mid-November, one that was expected to keep him out for four weeks.  It’s a little past that point already but with him getting an AHL start today, he’s very close to returning.

This season, Comrie has posted a 3.62 GAA along with a .887 SV% in 11 starts, numbers that aren’t particularly strong.  However, he hasn’t had a lot of goal support relative to Craig Anderson and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen as four of Comrie’s seven losses have come with Buffalo scoring two or fewer goals.  Now with the team being more consistently dangerous offensively, a better performance from Comrie is certainly possible.

His pending return is also good news for the Sabres in terms of developing Luukkonen.  Comrie’s addition was intended to allow the 23-year-old to get a heavy workload in the minors but with Comrie’s absence and Anderson being the oldest player in the league, he has basically been in a timeshare situation lately.  Once Comrie returns to the Sabres, that should change and Luukkonen can go back to being the starter for the Americans as planned.

Lawrence Pilut Clears Waivers

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Dec 30, 1:20 pm: Pilut has now cleared waivers, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Buffalo is free to reassign him to the AHL.

Dec 29, 2:49 pm: Buffalo Sabres defenseman Lawrence Pilut has been placed on waivers, according to CapFriendly. If Pilut clears waivers, he’ll be eligible to be assigned to the team’s AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans.

Pilut, 26, has spent most of the season in Buffalo after being originally called up in late October. The Swedish blueliner hasn’t been there for his offensive production — he’s scored just three points — but he’s chipped in sporadically on the penalty kill (he averages just under a minute played per game shorthanded) and given his team over twelve minutes of ice time per night.

The Sabres announced that defenseman Jacob Bryson would be returning to the lineup tonight, meaning Pilut’s placement on waivers cleared the roster spot necessary to facilitate Bryson’s return from injured reserve.

As he costs just $750K and will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, it’s possible a team in need of some low-cost reinforcement on their back end will place a claim on the former SHL star.

The Sabres are likely hoping he passes through waivers and can be assigned to Rochester, though. Pilut has been extremely successful in Rochester in the past, such as when he scored 26 points in 30 games there as a rookie in 2018-19.

The Americans have had the second-worst power play in their division so far this season, so perhaps if he clears waivers Pilut can be of assistance there.

The Americans’ top-scoring defenseman is Ethan Prow, who has just 13 points in 26 games. Should Pilut clear waivers and spend an extended period in Rochester, he should quickly become their go-to offensive option from the back end.

NHL Postpones Tuesday’s Game Between The Buffalo Sabres And Columbus Blue Jackets

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4:15 pm: The NHL, as well as Columbus and Buffalo, have since confirmed the postponement, adding that a makeup date will be set at some point, though they don’t have one right now.

3:08 pm: It appears yet another game will be postponed due to this past week’s winter weather in the upstate New York and Ontario area. According to the Columbus Dispatch’s Brian Hedger, tomorrow’s game featuring the Buffalo Sabres and Columbus Blue Jackets is expected to be postponed. Neither team nor the NHL has confirmed the postponement yet and no makeup date is known.

This postponement comes on the heels of two additional games that were rescheduled from Friday. Both the Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators, in Ottawa, and the Detroit Red Wings and Buffalo Sabres, in Buffalo, had to be postponed. Buffalo, who hasn’t played since last Monday, December 18th, will now have to make-up two games.

Although tomorrow’s game was supposed to be in Columbus, the reason for the postponement appears to be the Sabres’ inability to get to Columbus. At this point in time, many roads in the Buffalo area are closed to traffic, and the airport itself will remain closed through tomorrow. The Sabres had been due to fly out of Buffalo tomorrow morning for that evening’s game. Interestingly, the same-day travel had nothing to do with the weather in Buffalo, but instead the league’s restriction on practice and travel today.

Looking ahead, the Sabres are scheduled to host the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday before hitting the road and heading to Boston on Saturday. Thus far, there’s been no word on the status of either of those games.

Buffalo Sabres Activate Ilya Lyubushkin

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The Buffalo Sabres are activating defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin ahead of tonight’s game, putting him right into the lineup. Lyubushkin hasn’t played since November 28th while dealing with an undisclosed injury. In a corresponding move, the team announced that defenseman Jeremy Davies has been returned on loan to the Rochester Americans, their AHL affiliate.

A key veteran and quality shutdown defenseman, the Sabres have surely missed Lyubushkin’s steady presence in their lineup. Though Lyubushkin doesn’t play top minutes for the Sabres, averaging just 15:24 time-on-ice this season, his 76% of defensive zone starts show just how much Buffalo trusts him in their own end.

As for Davies, the former New Jersey Devils prospect got into just one game ont his recall, his only NHL contest of the season, which came this Saturday. He’ll return to Rochester where he’s been a steady piece of their blueline amid a season of injuries and recalls affecting the entire Sabres organization. With Rochester, Davies has five points in 19 games to start the season.

Ilya Lyubushkin Ready To Return

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  • Things didn’t look good for Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone last night when he went down in obvious pain during the third period of the team’s game against the New York Islanders. The winger struggled to get off the ice with the assistance of his teammates, but surprisingly was able to come back and join them in the final moments of the game. Unsurprisingly, after the game, Vegas head coach Bruce Cassidy was asked about the status of his star forward, telling The Athletic’s Jesse Granger that the hope is Stone’s injury is “just a stinger,” but he wouldn’t know much more until today. Cassidy added that Stone was not 100% when he rejoined the team late in the game. So far, no additional information has come out about Stone’s status. Vegas next plays at home on Monday against the Sabres.
  • Yesterday, the Buffalo Sabres were able to get forward Kyle Okposo back from injury and Jeff Skinner back from suspension, but were without defensemen Owen Power, Jacob Bryson, and Ilya Lyubushkin. The team didn’t have much information on Power or Bryson, and the same holds true today, however according to The Buffalo News’ Mike Harrington, Ilya Lyubushkin is set to return tomorrow against Vegas. Noticeably absent from the ice this morning were defensemen Rasmus Dahlin and Mattias Samuelsson, but as Harrington adds, both were absent simply for rest purposes.

Buffalo Sabres Announce A Number Of Injury Updates

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Things haven’t necessarily gone as planned for the Buffalo Sabres to start this season, the team coming into tonight with a 14-14-2 record thus far, tying them with the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens for the bottom three positions in the Atlantic Division. There are some bright spots, such as the further breakouts of Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin, or that record being partially influencex by an eight game losing streak that came with zero points, and there are reasons for the struggles, such as poor goaltending and a myriad of injury issues. Those injury issues continue to persist, but with injuries does come injury updates and the Sabres were able to provide a few of those today.

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