Buffalo Sabres: Still no reason to panic over Eric Comrie
By Sion Fawkes
Eric Comrie had yet another bad outing from a numbers standpoint in the Buffalo Sabres preseason loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
If you watched Eric Comrie in his two preseason games, you’re going to come to a different conclusion regarding those who only pay attention to numbers. Over his two preseason games, Comrie logged an 0.810 save percentage and a GAA of 5.5, which looks more than abysmal on paper.
But when you take into account he logged zero home games, and played with younger, inexperienced, and even fringe players in front of him, you start to understand why Comrie logged such poor numbers. You probably also saw more than a few highlight reel saves that justified exactly why general manager Kevyn Adams brought the goaltender to town in the first place.
Eric Comrie will be fine for the Buffalo Sabres in the regular season
Comrie’s critics point to the fact he played in just 19 games last season and that his old team, the Winnipeg Jets, showed no intention of allowing Comrie to play long enough to attain RFA status. One reason comes with the goaltender they already had in the net: Connor Hellebuyck.
Hellebuyck remains one of the best goaltenders in the NHL, and one of the most durable. For that, the Jets had no reason to constantly swap goaltenders in and out unless it meant giving Hellebuyck the occasional night off.
When Comrie got the chance to play, he shined, finishing the year with a 2.58 GAA and a .920 save percentage. And while it will be tough to emulate those numbers in Buffalo, Comrie will be in a much better position with the actual roster, as opposed to just a few NHL regulars, playing in front of him.
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He will have Rasmus Dahlin and Mattias Samuelsson manning the first pairing, not Lawrence Pilut and Casey Fitzgerald, two guys better suited as extra skaters or the third pairing. The Sabres skaters also logged little variance in ice time, giving the fringe players like Vinnie Hinostroza, Anders Bjork, and Sean Malone more ice time than they would otherwise get.
Article Source: Sabres drop preseason finale in Pittsburgh by Jourdon LaBarber
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)