Comets Militia Weekly Prospect Report – April 30th, 2014

AHL

OHL

• The Erie Otters have been eliminated from the OHL postseason by the Guelph Storm, leaving the last remaining team with a Canucks prospect, the North Bay Battalion, as the only such team still in the mix. That North Bay squad has swept Oshawa to make the OHL Finals.
• The first game of the OHL final is scheduled to start on Thursday.
• Cole Cassels was the only prospect to score a point in the postseason this week, earning 1 assist in 1 game. He also earned a -1, 4 PIM and has the highest PPG of all OHL prospects in the playoffs.
• In one game this week Dane Fox scored 0 points, earned a -2 and 4 PIM.
• Gaunce played the same game, also scoring 0 points, earning a -4 and 6 PIM.
• Liberati played 1 game this week with 0 points.
• Looking at some fancy stats for the OHL prospects, in terms of Even Strength Goal For % Gaunce is at +3.51%, Fox is +4.02%, Cassels is a +4.06% and Horvat is a -4.32%.  Subban is a +12.23%, McEneny a -0.17% and Liberati at -17.18%. Remember, context is king (and so usage charts will be coming).

WHL

• Portland has beaten Kelowna in 5 games, to earn their spot into the WHL finals against Edmonton.  The series is set to start up on May 3rd. It’s possible that 3 of the 4 teams in the Memorial Cup will have Canucks prospects in them!
• In 2 games this week Cederholm has earned 2 PIM and a +2.

ECHL

• In the ECHL the Kalamazoo Wings have bowed out of the first round of the playoffs in six games against the Greenville Road Warriors.  
• Blomstrand has played in 3 games this week scoring 1 goal and notching 8 SOG.
• Pacan played in 4 games earning 2 assists, a -3, 2 SOG and 2 PIM.
• Kaunisto was shut down in the ECHL playoffs, despite 20 SOG he had 0 points, and a -3 in 6 games.
• Blain played in 4 games since returning from the AHL, earning 0 points from 14 SOG with 2 PIM.
• No playoff action for Wes Myron, Corbeil or Guimond.

Thoughts de Semaine

• With the AHL playoffs well underway you might care about how that is currently going..
• So far in the West, Texas (Dallas) is up 2-0 on Oklahoma City (Edmonton), Chicago (St. Louis) is tied 1-1 with Rochester (Buffalo), Toronto (Toronto) is up 2-0 on Milwaukee (Nashville) and Grand Rapids is up 2-0 on Abbotsford (Calgary).
• In the east Manchester (LA) is tied 1-1 with Norfolk (Anaheim), Springfield (Columbus) is up 2-1 on Providence (Boston), Binghamton (Ottawa) is tied 1-1 with W-B/Scranton (Pittsburgh) and the Ice Caps (Winnipeg) are tied 1-1 with Albany (New Jersey).
• Canucks.com has a really good wrap-up on the Utica Comets season, so make sure to check that out.
• The Utica Comets also have their season by the numbers, which proves to be another good read.
• The CanucksArmy analytics review of the Utica Comets will be coming shortly, this I promise, so hold on tight!
• One reason for Friesen’s improvment in numbers at the end of the year could be related to playing with Welsh. A high QoT with higher ice-time would definitely lead to that elevated point production. We will have to see in October if he’s improved as a player, or whether it was just a situational thing.
• I mentioned last week that Kaunisto was released from his PTO at the end of the season. This was done to allow him to go back to Kalamazoo and join the KWings on their playoff run.
• Brendan M Burke, the Comets play by play man, had a good end of year summary you should listen to on Soundcloud.
• The Province also wraps up the year that was for the Comets.
• While we know Jensen will be playing for Denmark in the World Championships, I would suspect that Kenins will also be joining Latvia. They haven’t announced their roster yet so we will just have to wait and see.
• Eriksson was named to Team Sweden after the news of Eddie Lack’s injury.
• Pass it to Bulis talks about round three of the OHL Playoffs.
• Reddit’s /r/Canucks has a discussion on Dane Fox which seems to be split between the two ideas of “he’s scoring 2 PPG so he will be a first liner” and “He wasn’t drafted therefore he’s a bust”.  Realistically he’s somewhere in between those two, but where’s the fun in that!
• The Hockey Writers wrote about Dane Fox this week, an interesting perspective. They also have a mock draft which sees Ehlers jump to be taken by the Islanders and allowing Dal Colle to jump to 6th place for the Canucks. It would be hard to argue with that.