Sabres waive Eric Comrie, but goalie could be big addition for Amerks

The inevitable finally happened in Buffalo last week when general manager Kevyn Adams and coach Don Granato concluded that the Sabres could no longer carry three goaltenders on the active roster with forward Zemgus Girgensons returning from injured reserve.

And so, with Devon Levi and Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen both playing pretty well, and third wheel Eric Comrie getting stale while sitting in the press box every night, the decision was made to waive the 28-year-old Comrie who signed a two-year, $3.8 million free agent contract before the start of last season but never really took hold of the No. 1 job.

“I’ve said all along it’s not ideal to have three goalies on the roster,” Adams said after Comrie cleared waivers and joined the Amerks. “We’ve said we may get to a spot with our roster where if we get healthy, that we were going to be forced to make a decision.”

Thus, like fellow NHL veterans Tyson Jost and Jacob Bryson who were both waived by the Sabres in the last few weeks and are now with the Amerks, Comrie will get a chance to reboot his career in Rochester and he certainly got off to a great start last weekend.

In his Amerks debut Friday night at Blue Cross Arena, Comrie took on the North Division-leading Cleveland Monsters and stopped 33 shots to backstop an impressive 3-1 victory, Rochester’s first regulation-time win at home since Nov. 10 and just its sixth all season.

“Felt good throughout the whole night,” said Comrie, who hadn’t played since Dec. 5 when he gave up four goals in a 5-3 Sabres loss to the Detroit Red Wings. “The preparation was good all week. When I got here on Tuesday, been working hard right from the get-go and I think the guys bought into what we wanted to do this weekend. It was fun to see.”

“Him being so ready for his first game in a month is a credit to his work ethic which is impeccably high,” coach Seth Appert said. “Everybody raves about the kind of work he puts into his game and that’s the only way you can be ready when you’ve been off that long is to take pride in the work you do. I thought he was really solid, made the game simple. He kept the chaos to a minimum.”

With the score tied at 1-1 early in the second period, Cleveland’s Trey Fix-Wolansky - who is tied for fifth in AHL scoring with 32 points including 12 goals - cruised on a breakaway and Comrie stopped him. Shortly thereafter, Mason Jobst and Viktor Neuchev scored 1:03 apart to give Rochester a 3-1 lead and Comrie made it stand up the rest of the night.

This was as well as Comrie has played all season. In Buffalo he had struggled to a 1-5 record, a 4.01 goals-against average and a .863 save percentage in seven appearances. Granted, the talent in the AHL is a step below the NHL, but not as much as you would think.

“If you’re not in the NHL, this is the league you’re playing in so it’s very good players, very skilled,” Comrie said. “It’s also a very different league than when I was younger. When I was younger it was mostly veterans with a few young guys sprinkled in and now it’s a lot more young guys with skill trying to make plays. I just tried to have fun out there, do my thing and have fun, play the best I could. The guys did a great job in front of me just making it easy and it was a lot of fun to play.”

Jost, Bryson, and Comrie all believe they’re NHL players and none are particularly thrilled that they’re back in the AHL, but you can’t tell in the way that trio has played for the Amerks since joining the team. And for all three, the silver lining is that rather than sitting and watching in Buffalo, they’re playing for Rochester.

“Nothing I can do about it, just go out there and be me, be who I am as a human being, be happy, joyful, continue to work to be the best person I can be and go from there,” Comrie said about getting waived. “You always want to play games - you’re a hockey player, not a hockey practicer.

“For myself, get back into games, get back into a rhythm. We have three goalies here (Devin Cooley and Dustin Tokarski) so I don’t know how much I’m going to play or when I’m going to play so I’m just going to go out there each time and try to give the team the best chance to win.”

Comrie figures to take over as the No. 1 option because neither Tokarski or Cooley has stood out for Rochester. Tokarski is 6-6-2 with a 3.53 GAA and an .888 save percentage. Cooley is 5-4-2, 3.72 and .892, and that’s not good enough for a team trying to make a playoff push. The Amerks rank 31st out of 32 teams in goals against with 121.

Three-point weekend for Amerks

The Amerks and Monsters boarded their respective team buses after the Friday game and drove to Cleveland for the second half of a home-and-home weekend set. That game was far different than the first, a shootout that ended in a 6-5 overtime loss for Rochester at Rocket Mortgage Arena.

On three occasions the Amerks trailed by two goals, but Jeremy Davies’ goal at 16:29 of the second period and Isak Rosen’s at 4:15 of the third pulled Rochester even at 5-5. Tokarski, who had a rough first two periods as he allowed five goals on 26 shots, blanked Cleveland in the third with 12 saves to earn the Amerks a point, but he gave up the winning goal at 3:12 of overtime to Fix-Wolansky.

The three points pushed the Amerks (15-12-4) to fourth in the North Division standings with Belleville at 34 points, two behind Belleville and four behind second-place Syracuse (38).

Rookie defenseman Zach Metsa, who just returned after a lengthy stint on injured reserve, had a big night with a career-best three-point game (2 goals, 1 assist), while Brandon Biro had Rochester’s other goal.

Amerks lineup notes

▶ F Mason Jobst snapped a 12-game goal-scoring drought that dated back to Nov. 24 when he took a nice feed from Lukas Rousek and netted what proved to be the winner on a breakaway in the second period Friday. “I was happy it was Rousek who had the puck on his stick,” Jobst said. “That guy can find anybody.”

▶ F Viktor Neuchev also snapped a 12-game goalless drought with one Friday and he had two assists Saturday, a nice response after he was a healthy scratch the previous weekend in Utica. “We’ve seen so many good things from him the last six to eight weeks in practice every day, in the weight room, how hard he’s working, how much time he’s putting into his craft,” Appert said. “Neuch has bought into the process of what it’s going to take to become a really good hockey player in North America.”

▶ F Lukas Rousek continues to produce as he stretched his career-long point-scoring streak to eight games with an assist in each game against the Monsters. His 21 points trail only Rosen (24) and Jiri Kulich (22).

▶ F Jiri Kulich will return to the Amerks this week and should be back in the lineup Friday at Charlotte. Kulich spent the past couple weeks playing for Czechia at the World Junior Championships in Sweden. He scored 12 points in leading his team to a bronze medal in the tournament that was won by Team USA.

What’s next for the Amerks?

They head to Charlotte for a big weekend against the Checkers who are currently in fifth place in the Atlantic Division with 37 points. The teams will play Friday and Saturday with the second game being played outdoors at Truist Field, home of the Triple-A baseball Charlotte Knights.

The Queen City Outdoor Classic will begin at 7 p.m. and it will be the 12th outdoor AHL game. The Amerks hosted one of those back in 2013 when they played Lake Erie at what was then called Frontier Field.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out twice a week during the season, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Buffalo Sabres waive Eric Comrie, send him to Rochester Amerks