A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That Heading Into Canucks/Comets Training Camp: Part Two

Today, in the second part of this two-part series, I take a look at a few more notes as we approach training camp. Part-one can be found below.

I thought that it might be worth looking into the Comets record since the parent Canucks moved the team to Utica for the 2013/14 season and try to take a guess at a few numbers for this season.

As we can see, last year’s Comets squad did well in some areas, and not so well in others.

The 2018/19 Comets tied the 2015/16 group for most goals scored with 224, but they also tied the 2016/17 group for most goals allowed with 257.

The team also recorded their second-lowest penalty minute totals since the 2016/17 season with 937 minutes spent with a man in the box.

Utica posted their worst wins total with 34, as well as their highest number of losses with 34 as well. The team finished with a winning percentage of 0.500%, which is also the lowest number in franchise history.

The Comets will need to have a bounce-back year if they want to be successful and have a winning season.

The good news is that the team will be bringing back two of their top-three scorers from last season in Reid Boucher and Zack MacEwen. The two combined for a total of 53 goals and 61 assists last year for Utica and hopefully, both will match or beat those numbers this year.

The team has also added some players this offseason who could help support the scoring by Boucher and MacEwen.

This list comprises a decent group of forwards who should be able to help the returning Comets players improve on last seasons point totals.

Last offseason, I was a little optimistic about who would have a chance to score 20 goals for the Comets in the 2018/19 season as I had Kole Lind, Jonathan Dahlen, and Petrus Palmu all listed as potential candidates. Obviously, that never came to pass, but I did guess the correct number of 20-goal-men with three.

As we saw from my lists above, the Comets finished last year with three 20-goal scorers in Reid Boucher, Tanner Kero, and Zack MacEwen. That was the first time in team history that they finished with more than one. I feel like there is a good chance that we could see back-to-back seasons with multiple 20-goal-men in Utica by the time this season comes to a close. I will take a stab at who will hit 20 this year for the Comets… just for fun.

Time will tell if I am even remotely close with these predictions. I have TheBigFella only playing 51 games in Utica this season as I feel like he will spend the rest of his time up in Vancouver as a call-up. I do think that there is a pretty decent chance of at least having back-to-back seasons of more than one 20-goal-scorer in Utica this year.

Stay tuned for any and all Utica Comets news as the offseason comes to a close and we prepare for the 2019/20 campaign to begin.