Goalie Eric Comrie leaves Sabres contest with lower-body injury

The scuffling Buffalo Sabres suffered another injury in goal when Eric Comrie left the team’s 5-4 defeat against the New Jersey Devils with what the team announced as a lower-body injury.

After stopping consecutive Devils’ slapshots at the midway point of the second period, Comrie slumped over in his crease in obvious discomfort before exiting the game having turned away 16 of 18 shots.

Comrie’s misfortune comes at a difficult time for Buffalo, who lost Devon Levi to a lower-body injury of his own last Thursday. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is now the team’s only available NHL goaltender, though Levi is on track to return soon.

The 28-year-old Comrie had been excellent in his first two starts before leaving his third injured, and there was every possibility he would challenge highly-touted prospect Levi, who is 1-3 with a 3.26 GAA, for the net on his return.

Ill-timed injuries are nothing new for Comrie, who struggled through a series of similar ailments on a week-to-week basis in 2022-23; his latest setback thrusts Luukonen into a higher leverage role than coach Don Granato would have anticipated in the offseason.

The Sabres fell to 3-5 with their loss in New Jersey, and have yet to win back-to-back games this season after missing the postseason by a single point in 2022-23.

Buffalo’s entertaining brand of hockey and superstar talent gave many in upstate New York hope that the longest playoff drought in North American sports would end this year. To complete that task, they will need quality goaltending, whether from Levi, Luukonen, or the newly-shelved Comrie, to make up ground in the Atlantic Division.