Comets Sign G Clay Witt
By Jeremy Davis
8 years agoLast Friday (August 21st), the Utica Comets signed goaltender Clay Witt to an AHL contract.
Witt, 23, recently finished a 5 year college stint at Northwestern in NCAA’s Div I league, where posted impressive numbers in some seasons and less than impressive numbers in others. His GAA and Save Percentage fluctuated wildly between seasons, although sample size is responsible for much of this, as are the circumstances of the team playing in front of him – it’s really the last couple years that are the most interesting, and probably the most relevant.
Witt joins 4 goalies that are already on the Canucks’ professional depth chart. Let’s take a deeper look into who he is and where he fits on the goaltender ladder.
If the name Clay Witt sounds familiar, then you get bonus points for paying way too much attention. Witt was one of the goalies that was invited to the Canucks prospects camp in Shawnigan Lake School last month (you know that one where the social media team drew more attention than the actual hockey). If you remember the event, but don’t remember Witt, don’t sweat it – it’s probably because the “prospects camp” and “invited goalie” crossroads in your brain is being dominated by 6-foot-9 monster John McLean. Well, despite fears that the Canucks management might be swayed by sheer size over ability, they went a bit in the other direction.
In fact, as Cat Silverman pointed out in this Today’s Slapshot article, Witt is just another goaltender of rather pedestrian size, which is notable in an age where big goalies seem to be all the rage. Canucks defacto backup Jacob Markstrom stands at an imposing 6’6, but after that, none of the netminders under contract with the Canucks crack 6’2″. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything all by itself, but it is mildly interesting.
Now on to some numbers.
Numbers
First off, Witt managed five years in the NCAA rather than the usual four. This was due to an injury he sustained early in the 2012-13 season that had him on the shelf for the entire year. That lost season also works as a divider between his time as a backup and a starter, playing 7 and 8 games in the seasons before 2012-13 and 32 and 23 games in the seasons after that.
As you can see, there a wide difference in both the first two seasons, and the final two seasons, painting a rather confusing picture. The most promising year was 2013-14, in which Witt posted a 2.37 GAA and a .932 sv%, while starting more games than any other season. He finished the year with the NCAA’s 3rd best save percentage and was nominated for both the Hobey Baker Award (NCAA MVP) and the Mike Richter Award (NCAA Most Outstanding Goalie), though he missed out on both.
Cat Silverman also added the scouting report to the aforementioned Today’s Slapshot article:
He’s got a great ability to stay square to the shooter, lacking the second-guess nature that some goaltenders tend to have (which ultimately throws so many off their positioning and out of range to make a good save). He’s also got a strong blocker side, although he’s shown some struggles in the past with agility when a rebound gets fired and he hasn’t re-positioned himself in time. He’s had to work on developing the direction of his rebounds, as well.
All in all, a very impressive junior year. The following season though, his numbers were considerably less impressive, finishing 52nd and 61st in GAA and save percentage respectively (minimum 10 games played). However, there may be good reason for this: after a rough start to the 2014-15 campaign, Witt suffered a concussion. He fought back and eventually improved his numbers over the remainder of the year (thought they still ended well below average).
Clay Witt year-to-date save percentage, and 3-game rolling average save percentage.
(Numbers are from College Hockey Inc.)
Witt’s numbers may represent a lot more than just his own abilities. It seems that the conditions behind which he was playing were not exactly conducive to goaltender success. According to this SBN College Hockey article, Northeastern suffered from a number of defensive deficiencies including having too many offensively oriented defencemen, injuries to whatever defensively oriented defencemen remained, being routinely outshot, having a poor faceoff record and being the most penalized team in the NCAA. That’s a pretty garbage situation to have in front of you. It took the team 10 games to post their first win for heaven’s sake.
It’s important to note that his .904 save percentage last season was in all situations. I don’t have any even strength save percentages to go on, but I can tell you that 28 of the 66 goals he allowed were on the powerplay, and that is a lot. With a more competent penalty kill, and general defensive, it’s likely that Witt’s numbers would look a whole lot better.
Witt was given a cup of coffee with the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL during their playoffs, but didn’t actually start any games, playing only in relief.
So which season is a more reliable indicator of his talent? In all likelihood, it’s somewhere in the middle. The question is, where does he end up next year?
Where He Fits
With 4 goalies already signed to NHL contracts, where does Clay Witt fit? Noted prospect mastermind Josh Weissbock dropped this knowledge on me:
His signing doesn’t have much effect on Vancouver. The Comets like to have 3 goalies good to go: 2 years ago they signed Matthieu Corbeil to an AHL SPC. Last year they had Markstrom and Eriksson and Cannata. This year I imagine the depth chart is Bachman then Cannata, and Witt likely in the ECHL. If/when one of the other 4 goalies gets hurt and there is a shuffle, he will go up to AHL for a bit.
This is a good way for the Canucks to keep tabs and developing possible prospects they like who they aren’t convinced are ready for an ELC.
Before the 2013-14 season, the Canucks purchased an AHL franchise and established it in Utica. One of the purported benefits of owning your own AHL team was the ability to hand out AHL contracts to players that you were on the fence about, without having to use one of the team’s 50 contracts, or start the clock on an ELC. The Canucks have already done this with Curtis Valk, the diminutive former Medicine Hat centre who put up decent numbers last season until he busted his knee and was shut down for the year. Valk has been given another shot (with another AHL contract) this year to continue to convince management that he is worthy of an NHL contract.
Witt is now in a similar situation. The Canucks brass must have liked what they saw at the prospects camp, but only enough to take an AHL flyer on him. Now it’s up to Witt to show what he’s got.
As Josh mentioned, it is likely that Witt is behind both Bachman and Cannata on the Comets depth chart, probably indicating that he will start the year in the ECHL, either for Kalamazoo or loaned to another club, as Joe Cannata was last season.
At this point, Witt is little more than a safety mechanism in case injuries force those above him up the ladder. How this pickup affects the Canucks long term will probably be predicated largely on how he performs this season, where ever he lands. If Witt impresses either in a lower league, or in AHL spot duty, he could earn himself another ticket. Bachman and Cannata both have just a single year remaining on their deals, and AHL goalies are wont to bolt to other leagues if they feel that there isn’t room for advancement. Canucks goaltender prospect Thatcher Demko has at least another year ahead of him, going into his junior year at Boston College, before he will join the pro ranks in Utica.
If Witt can demonstrate that he is still the award-nominated player he was in 2013-14, the Canucks may have stumbled upon some found money. Perhaps this signing, and Clay Witt, goes absolutely nowhere, but these are the nifty types of transactions that bear no risk, and have the potential to reward. Who knows, we may have just been introduced to Thatcher Demko’s goalie controversy partner.
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