CanucksArmy Utica Comets Pre-Game: Game #24, Utica Comets at Providence Bruins

Game #24

Utica Comets at Providence Bruins

Saturday, December 7th, 2019

7:05 pm Eastern/4:05 pm Pacific

The 13-8-1-1 Utica Comets hit the road to Providence to take on the 15-7-1-2 Bruins, (Boston affiliate) for game number 24 of the season today at 7:05 pm Eastern/4:05 pm Pacific. The Comets are coming off of a 5-4 shootout loss to Bridgeport, while the Bruins last played to a 6-2 win over the Binghamton Devils.

Utica has gone 4-4-1-1 over their previous 10 contests, while Providence shows a record of 7-2-1-0 over that same span. The Comets will have their hands full today. The Comets show a road record of 7-3-0-0 this season, while the Bruins have gone 10-3-1-1 at home.

The teams are relatively closely matched in terms of goals for and against as Utica has outscored their opponents by a margin of 81-66 while the Bruins have outscored their competition by a count of 88-65.

The Comets have the edge in special teams, if only by a little as their power play has gone 20/89 this year to give them a 22.5% success rate with the extra man. Their penalty kill has given up 14 goals while short a man 102 times for an 86.3% success rate.

The Bruins, for their part, have scored 16 goals while up a man 92 times for a success rate of 17.4%, while their penalty kill has allowed 15 goals while down a man 108 times for an 86.1% success rate.

The Bruins are led in scoring by rookie Jack Studnicka with 10 goals and 11 helpers, giving him 21 points in 23 games this year. Paul Carey sits second with 11 goals and nine assists to give himself 20 points in 24 games, while Alex Petrovic rounds out their top three with his two goals and 15 assists, giving him 17 points in 24 games.

As mentioned above, Studnicka leads the Bruins rookie crew with 21 points in 23 games, while Brogan Rafferty wears the rookie crown in Utica with two goals and 14 helpers, giving him 16 points in 23 games this year.

Reid Boucher leads the Comets with 16 goals and nine assists, giving him 25 points in 18 games this season. Nikolay Goldobin sits second with eight goals and 12 assists to give himself 20 points in 18 games, while Kole Lind rounds out the top three with four goals and 13 assists, giving him 17 points in 23 games. Kole put up 17 in 51 games last year in his rookie campaign.

The Comets could be facing off against a pair of former teammates named Brendan today as Gaunce and Woods both signed with the Bruins organization in the offseason.

This will be the second of two games that these clubs will play in the regular season. The Bruins took the first game 2-0 and handed the Comets their first loss of the season.

Joona Koppanen and Zach Senyshyn scored the goals in that game while Cameron Hughes picked up the lone assist that was awarded.

Mikey DiPietro took the loss in that game, posting a goals-against-average of 2.10 along with a 0.920% save percentage. Max Lagace grabbed the win while posting a 0.00 GAA along with a save percentage of 1.00%.

The Comets went 0/4 with the man advantage in that game, while the Bruins went 0/1.

The Canucks got Jacob Markstrom back and he will be backing up today, so we can expect to see Mikey DiPietro making his return to Utica shortly. The team announced today that they were getting some healthy bodies back up front and that means the Comets are getting Zack MacEwen back from his most recent promotion to the big club.

 

The two clubs will get after it in Providence today at 7:05 pm Eastern/4:05 pm Pacific. As always, stay tuned for your CanucksArmy post-game report following today’s action.