Back up plan good for Comrie

Eric Comrie knew the day was coming. He wasn’t sure exactly when, but at some point Connor Hellebuyck was going to take a timeout on his season.

And so the Winnipeg Jets backup goaltender stayed ready, waiting for the moment when the pain got too much and the reigning Hart and Vezina Trophy shut things down in order to undergo arthroscopic knee surgery.

“He was trying to play through it. He’s a tough guy,” Comrie said Saturday of Hellebuyck’s ailment, which first cropped up during training camp in September and was getting persistently worse over time

“He’s trying to give everything this team he could, give everything he can to the city.”

The decision was finally made this week, vaulting Comrie into the No. 1 spot for what is expected to be a four-to-six week recovery for Hellebuyck.

“He’s never dealt with an injury before in his whole career, pretty much. Knock on wood, he gets no more,” said Comrie.

“He’s unbelievable. I hope his recovery goes along smoothly. It just shows you how good of a goalie he is. He can adjust his game and still play that good, considering how he was feeling.”

Comrie, 30, is embracing his new lead role, which began with a tough 4-3 loss on Friday night the visiting Carolina Hurricanes. He’ll be back between the pipes on Sunday afternoon as the Jets close out a three-game homestand against the Minnesota Wild.

“I’m just treating it as any other game. Like, just the same thing as if I’m backing up,” Comrie said of his mindset.

“Just go out there and play my game. Today, I worked hard at practice making sure I got my work in, and tomorrow, go out there and do the best I can for this team and get the best I can for myself. That’s all I can do at the end of the day.”

Comrie has never made more than 20 appearances in a season but is likely to now blow by that number by Christmas. He’s notorious for staying on the ice late after practice to work with players — that’s the usual role of an understudy — but may have to tinker his workload now that he’s going to be pressed into more duty than ever.

“For sure, there’s definitely some different load management things you have to do,” he said.

There’s also a different mentality of taking the net every other night, rather than waiting a week or longer between starts. You don’t have nearly as much time to agonize over every little mistake — such as giving up the first goal on the first shot of the game by Carolina’s Jordan Staal just 16 seconds into the opening period.

“Flats (Flaherty) goes ‘Oh man, first shot of the game, I was a little worried.’ Like, I’ve been scored on the first shot of the game many times before. And you know what? It’s going to happen again,” Comrie said, noting a younger version of himself likely wouldn’t have handled adversity quite as well.

“It’s just the way things happen in this game of hockey. I just go out there and play my game. I’m gonna go out there, put the best foot forward, work as hard as I can every single day and just try to achieve success. I’m going to lay it all out because I love these guys. I’m gonna do everything I can to win for these guys.”

The feeling is mutual, and the Jets know they need to be hyper-focused on their attention to defensive detail and systemic structure to help weather the storm of not having Hellebuyck around. In that sense, the Carolina game was a solid first step as the Jets surrendered just one high-danger scoring chance all night at even strength.

“We played really strong against arguably one of the best teams, if not the best team in the league,” said Comrie.

“We could have won that game as and you can see over the last week here, we’ve been giving up a lot less chances. We played very good in our own end and limiting chance. I think we understand the more chances we limit, the more opportunity we’re going to have.”

Meanwhile, Hellebuyck’s injury has opened another door for Thomas Milic — the third-year pro who has been patiently working on his craft at both the ECHL and AHL levels since the Jets drafted him in the fifth round, 151st-overall, back in 2023.

The 22-year-old is, for now, the No. 2 man in the organizational pecking order. Unlike Comrie, he wasn’t aware the winds of change were going to start blowing with the big club.

“It was super special, right after our game the other night with the Moose, getting called into the coach’s office and hearing the news then,” said Milic. “It was a shock, but I am excited and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling. I am trying to stay grounded and enjoy every second.”

Making his NHL debut is no longer just the stuff of dreams. It’s very likely to happen, perhaps as soon as next Saturday in Nashville when the Jets will be playing for a second straight night and Comrie will likely need a breather.

“Obviously, with a condensed schedule, it is a lot of games in a short amount of time. Comrie is going to hold down the fort, but I will be ready when I get my chance and I am just excited for it,” said Milic.

Does that mean family and friends back in British Columbia have a bag packed and at the ready for a “I’m going to be playing” phone call?

“I’m trying not to jump the gun here. Taking it one day at a time and deal with that when it happens,” he said.

Milic is off to a terrific start to this season, with a 2.14 goals-against-average and .921 save percentage over nine games with the Moose. The former Western Hockey League goaltender of the year, who went to the Memorial Cup with the Seattle Thunderbirds in his final junior season, said he’s ready for the next big challenge.

“I’m just growing and maturing as a person and as a goaltender,” he said. “No matter what level I have been playing at the last couple of years, I have learned a lot.”

EXTRA, EXTRA – Top centre and leading scorer Mark Scheifele was missing from Saturday’s practice at Hockey For All Centre but there’s apparently no cause for concern: The team says it was just for routine maintenance and he’s expected to be in the lineup against the Wild.

Along with Hellebuyck — who had his surgery on Saturday — depth defenceman Haydn Fleury was the only other player to not hit the ice. He’s currently in concussion protocol and suffered a setback earlier this week. There is no timeline for his return.

Minnesota is coming in hot, having beaten the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-0 on Friday night. They currently occupy third place in the Central Division, two points ahead of the Jets, although Winnipeg owns two games in hand.

“There’s no easy nights in the NHL. We got a bit of a lesson last night from Carolina, a team I’m very familiar with. They play a hard game, they play a fast game. They have a pressure style and we took a little while to adjust to that,” said assistant coach Dean Chynoweth.

“It’s a bit of a copycat league, too, when you’re doing pre-scouts and watching other teams and you’re trying to pick apart the other team with where we can benefit from, and teams are doing that to us. So I won’t be surprised about (Minnesota) coming out extremely hard. Obviously it’s a division game that we need.”

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