Welcome to this week’s version of the Canucks Prospect Report.. it feels as if I haven’t been able to update you since last year!  This will be the first of hopefully 52 more prospect reports in 2014, and the players in question have been very busy post-Christmas.

As always, follow me @nuckprospects on Twitter for the latest in prospect news and feed free to send me any feedback on anything prospect related you wish me to cover.

Let’s get to it just past the jump.

Utica

Games

Friday’s game

In the first game back after the Christmas break, the Comets were unable to walk away with a win despite outplaying Ottawa’s farm team. The game was tied most of the way through but a late powerplay by the BSens allowed them to score with only 28 seconds left. The final score was 4-3, and the shot were in Binghamton’s favour by a miniscule 34-33 margin. Utica goals were scored by Archibald and Grenier (x2). The assists came from Biega, Mullen, O’Reilly, Pelletier (x2) and Grenier. Cannata was in net stopping 30 of 34 shots. The Comets went 1 for 8 on the PP and 4 for 7 on the #POWERKILL.

• Utica’s Game Report
• AHLs Box Score

Saturday’s Game

In the second leg of the back-to-back the Comets came out of the gate sluggish but managed to get on the board first. Goals were traded back and forth tieing the game up and sending the game to the shootout. It was the Hamilton Bulldogs that won in the SO after six rounds, leaving the Comets to head home with just the 1 point. The final score was 4-3 for the Bulldogs with shots well in their favour at 41-31. Goals for the Comets came from all Canucks prospects: Tommernes, Archibald, and Grenier. Assists came from Biega, Tommernes, O’Reilly, and Ferriero (x2). Cannata made 37 of 40 stops. Meanwhile, the Comets went 2 for 6 on the PP and 1 for 1 on the PK.  

• Utica Game Report
• AHL’s Box score

Wednesday’s Game

After a few days break the Comets played Lake Erie at home on Wednesday afternoon. The Comets came out of the gate strong and controlled play for most of the way. The final score was 3-2 for the Comets with the shots in their favour as well (27-20). Goals came from Stuart, Pelletier and Archibald. Assists from Biega (x2), Pelletier (x2), DeFazio and Archibald.  Cannata made 18 of 20 stops. Comets went 1 for 6 on the PP and 2 for 3 on the PK.

• Utica Game Report
• AHL’s Box score

Players Performance

Players stats who have played at least one game with the Comets, (X) indicates not currently on the active roster, so far are:

#	Player	Pos	Age	GP	G	A	PTS	PPG	SOG	Sh/G	+/-	PIM	SH%
78	Benn Ferriero	R	26	30	10	12	22	0.73	87	2.90	-8	10	11.5
10	Colin Stuart	L	31	26	10	4	14	0.54	70	2.69	-3	22	14.3
15	Jeremy Welsh	C	25	3	0	0	0	0.00	7	2.33	-2	2	0
28	Alexandre Grenier	R	21	30	9	10	19	0.63	69	2.30	2	25	13
25	Darren Archibald	L	23	22	6	5	11	0.50	50	2.27	-2	48	12
17	Nicklas Jensen	C	20	24	1	3	4	0.17	49	2.04	-3	10	2
24	Brandon DeFazio	F	24	30	2	8	10	0.33	57	1.90	3	57	3.5
23	Pascal Pelletier	C	30	26	6	20	26	1.00	49	1.88	2	26	12.2
14	Patrick Mullen	D	27	24	6	5	11	0.46	43	1.79	-5	9	14
7	Henrik Tommernes	D	23	23	4	5	9	0.39	40	1.74	-10	2	10
26	Frank Corrado (X)	C	20	29	2	3	5	0.17	43	1.48	-2	20	4.7
4	Yann Sauve	D	23	26	0	5	5	0.19	38	1.46	-8	30	0
16	Cal O’Reilly	C	27	16	2	10	12	0.75	21	1.31	5	0	9.5
19	Kellan Lain	C	24	30	5	4	9	0.30	35	1.17	-1	78	14.3
9	Zach Hamill (X)	C	24	21	3	6	9	0.43	23	1.10	-4	6	13
3	Alex Biega	D	25	28	1	7	8	0.29	29	1.04	2	27	3.4
29	Kent Huskins	D	34	20	0	0	0	0.00	19	0.95	2	7	0
12	David Marshall	F	28	25	0	1	1	0.04	18	0.72	-6	9	0
40	Peter Andersson	D	22	24	1	6	7	0.29	15	0.63	2	8	6.7
27	Alex Mallet	C	21	24	1	1	2	0.08	13	0.54	-2	11	7.7
8	Alex Friesen	F	22	8	0	1	1	0.13	4	0.50	0	2	0

Goalies so far:

#	Goalies	GP	Mins	W	L	SL	SO	GA	GAA	SVS	SV%
30	Joacim Eriksson	20	1146:23:00	8	10	1	2	53	2.77	515	0.907
35	Joe Cannata	12	659:23:00	3	7	1	0	33	3	287	0.897

Transactions:

A lot of these did not get much news so you can see official notice on the AHL transaction page.

• Eriksson has been called up the Vancouver Canucks and was the back up to Lack for three games
• Mathieu Corbeil called up from ECHL’s Wheeling Nailer to the Comets
• David Marshall has been resigned to a PTO
• Frank Corrado has been called up to the Vancouver Canucks with the large number of Canucks defencemen injuries
• Jeremy Welsh has been waived down to the Utica Comets
• Eriksson has been sent back down to Utica.  I would assume Corbeil will follow suite.

Other:

Currently the Comets are in 15th place with 25 points (11-16-2-1). They have been out-scored 72 to 90 (-18), and have been outshot 824 to 892 (-68). They are controlling 48.02% (acknowledging score effects) of the shots with an on ice shooting percentage of 8.6% and a save percentage of 90.1%. A simple version of PDO puts them at 98.7% which continues to regress. Their PP is currently at 20.34% (6th place and continues to rise) while their PK is 74.58% (30th place) and remains the league’s worst. The Comets are currently ranked 18th in Puck Possession amongst the AHL teams. 

Corrado has played in two games since being called up to the Vancouver Canucks, CanucksArmy wrote about this earlier this week and I provided some usage data on him. In his first game Corrado was 53% Corsi For and a 60% Fenwick For. In his second game, with 9 minutes TOI, he had a 52.6% Corsi For and a 50% Fenwick For.

The Comets are still in last place in the West but they are only 2 points behind 14th place and they have three games in hand with a much highest Est. Possession. They are also 3 points behind 12th and 13th place and 4 points behind 11th place.  I doubt they will make the playoffs this year (my Monte Carlo gives them a 12% chance) but I don’t see them sitting in last place for much longer.  

On Friday the Comets play at home vs. the Amerks before going on a road trip. On Saturday they’ll play at Toronto and then next Wednesday the Comets will play in Oklahoma City then heading off to Texas.

OHL

Most of the excitement on the OHL-front this week has come from Bo Horvat and newest Canucks prospect Dane Fox.

Dane Fox is an overager who plays with the Erie Otters on the same line as Gaunce. He scores almost 2 PPG. On one hand overagers rarely workout in the NHL, but on the other hand he has had great underlying numbers for the last few years and has been a consistent 1 PPG scorer for the last 3-4 years. He went undrafted due to injuries and attitude. Read more on him here and here.

The other interesting story is on Horvat. Currently he is not playing in London as he is at the World Junior Championship in Sweden. In four games so far he has 1G, 2A and 7SOG. Cam Charron has Bo Horvat with a positive scoring chance differential in Canada’s games. You can see here why Horvat wears #53.

Name	Position	GP	G	A	P	PPG	+/-	PIM
Bo Horvat	C	0	0	0	0	0.00	0	0
Dane Fox	C	38	42	27	69	1.82	29	73
Brendan Gaunce	C	3	2	1	3	1.00	1	8
Cole Cassels	C	4	0	4	4	1.00	1	6
Jordan Subban	D	5	1	6	7	1.40	5	5
Evan McEneny	D	5	1	5	6	1.20	1	12
Miles Liberati	D	4	0	0	0	0.00	-1	0

And so far this year the stats of these players are:

Name	Position	Team	GP	G	A	P	PPG	+/-	PIM
Bo Horvat	C	London	28	16	28	44	1.57	18	22
Dane Fox	C	Erie	38	42	27	69	1.82	29	73
Brendan Gaunce	C	Erie	13	8	6	14	1.08	11	10
		Belleville	22	10	16	26	1.18	-5	27
Cole Cassels	C	Oshawa	33	13	27	40	1.21	10	55
Jordan Subban	D	Belleville	37	7	22	29	0.78	4	37
Evan McEneny	D	Kingston	15	3	7	10	0.67	4	26
		Kitchener	15	2	5	7	0.47	-11	23
Miles Liberati	D	North Bay	14	1	0	1	0.07	-2	6
		London	22	1	3	4	0.18	5	18

WHL

Not much to say in the WHL. Hunter Shinkaruk has been shut down for the season with hip surgery. Meanwhile, Cederholm earned a goal and an assist, marking his first points in quite some time. 

Portland is 2nd in the West with 54 points and 5th in the BMO CHL Top Ten.

Name	Position	GP	G	A	P	PPG	+/-	PIM
Hunter Shinkaruk (IR)	L	0	0	0	0	0.00	0	0
Anton Cederholm	D	3	1	1	2	0.67	2	2

And so far this season the players stats in the WHL are:

Name	Position	Team	GP	G	A	P	PPG	+/-	PIM
Hunter Shinkaruk (IR)	L	Medicine Hat	18	5	11	16	0.89	-2	29
Anton Cederholm	D	Portland	37	2	8	10	0.27	14	46

NCAA

Ben Hutton had no points in two games this week but continues to make things happen with 6 SOG in those contests. LaBate had 1 goal in 1 game this week. Also, it’s good to see that McNally continues to show that his suspension has not slowed him down with 2A and 3SOG in the 9-3 Harvard win over the Russian Red Stars. Harvard plays again on Saturday against Boston University. 

Statistics of NCAA players:

Name	Position	School	GP	G	A	P	PPG	+/-	S	S/G	PIM
Ben Hutton	D	uMaine	18	7	7	14	0.78	9	56	3.11	2
Joseph LaBate	F	uWisconsin	15	7	6	13	0.87	-1	45	3.00	2
Mike Williamson	D	Penn State	8	1	2	3	0.38	-1	13	1.63	13
Matthew Beattie	F	Yale	12	2	2	4	0.33	3	18	1.50	0
Patrick McNally	D	Harvard	7	1	6	7	1.00	0	20	2.86	2

ECHL/CHL

Polasek was released from the Canucks and no longer is in the system.  He appears to have joined HC Sparta Praha in the Czech league. This does leave a bit of a hole as he was always called up to Utica with injuries to defencemen. With Blain on the IR I am curious what would happen if Utica needs another defencemen. 

Steven Anthony has slowed down a bit in production with St Charles but it doesn’t help being on the worst team in the league. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in Utica next year. 

Statistics of players in the ECHL so far are:

ECHL	Position	Team	GP	G	A	P	PPG	+/-	SOG	S/G	PIM
Blain (IR)	D	K-Wings	11	1	4	5	0.45	4	21	1.91	33
Pacan	RW	K-Wings	26	4	8	12	0.46	-3	46	1.77	10
Blomstrand	LW	K-Wings	26	8	4	12	0.46	-2	53	2.04	10
Anthony	F	CHL St Charles	20	3	8	11	0.55	-10	35	1.75	10
Guimond	D	Gwinnett	20	1	4	5	0.25	-14	50	2.50	8

Europe

Not much to speak of for the European players.

Name	Position	Team	Age	GP	G	A	P	PPG	+/-	PIM
Anton Rodin	W	SHL Brynas	22	28	9	16	25	0.89	-3	22
Ronalds Kenins	LW	Swiss ZSC	22	25	5	11	16	0.64	9	12

Conclusion

Well, as I said in the preamble the Canucks prospects have been busy this week getting back to hockey after the Christmas break. Most of the production seems to be quite positive. Until next week, make sure to follow me @nucksprospect for the latest in Canucks prospect news.