Could the Utica Comets Be an Offensive Juggernaut Next Season?

The Canucks were a busy team during the NHL’s free agent frenzy on July 1st, picking up 5 new contracts and renewing the contract of Anton Rodin, who has mostly been a question mark since undergoing his most recent surgery.

Related: Grading The Canucks’ Free Agent Signings

Following the draft, it seemed like a reasonable assumption that the Canucks were going to have enough space on their NHL roster for Brock Boeser, Nikolay Goldobin and Jake Virtanen to battle it out for one or two spots. Between Rodin and the additions of Sam Gagner and Alex Burmistrov, the Canucks forward group is looking pretty full. In fact, if we were to assume full health of the Vancouver roster, I could easily see all three of Boeser, Goldobin, and Virtanen starting the season in Utica.

Now right off the hop, that’s a fairly risky assumption. Last year, we were told that Rodin would be ready for the regular season, but after playing in 5 exhibition games, he didn’t reappear until December. The year before that, Chris Higgins broke his foot in the first exhibition, and didn’t return until November. Assuming health is risky enough in any year, but probably more so next season, with the Canucks having four forwards that have had surgery since they last played an NHL game (Rodin, Markus Granlund, Brendan Gaunce, and Derek Dorsett), and while each of the them are supposed to be ready for the 2017-18 campaign, we all know that things sometimes go sideways.

But, for the sake of the argument, let’s assume full health. I see the forward group looking something like this (don’t concern yourselves with the line compositions or order for now, so much as who’s there):

In this exercise, Boeser, Goldobin and Virtanen are easy choices to head to the farm, as each of them will be waiver exempt. Jayson Megna (who was re-signed late last season) and Michael Chaput (who was given a QO in late June but as of yet does not have a contract) we’re also fairly easy choices, as they were signed to be in Utica originally anyway. One of them could challenge Burmistrov for a spot, but in terms of creating the most effective NHL lineup (or Rodin, depending on how he’s recovered from multiple knee surgeries), but I think this is how it’ll turn out.

That would leave Boeser, Goldobin, Virtanen, Chaput, and Megna to populate Utica’s top six. Then, we add Jonathan Dahlen to the mix. The 19-year old Swede is now on an Entry Level Contract with the Canucks, but it’s still feasible that he gets loaned to Sweden next year if he doesn’t make the big club, perhaps to join former Timra linemate Elias Pettersson in Växjö. But, if he does stay in North America, he’ll round out what could be one hell of an AHL top six.

For those who have been following the Comets since they entered the league in 2013-14, or, god forbid, have been watching all or most of their games, a strong top six is quite a departure from the norm for them. Even when the team was good (like the squad that went to the Calder Cup Finals in 2015), most of their success was derived from great goaltending, and the offensive prowess they did display was mostly driven by veterans like Cal O’Reilly, Dustin Jeffrey, and Brandon DeFazio.

As a team, the Comets have cracked the AHL’s top ten in goals per game just once in their existence, and even then they only just barely made the cut.

Utica hasn’t had a strong top six since then, and they’ve rarely had solid offensive prospects to show off. The Comets have been assigned approximately four high-skilled scoring forward prospects (Nicklas Jensen, Hunter Shinkaruk, Jake Virtanen, and 35 games of Sven Baertschi) in their four years of existence, which, by my math, is one per season. Brendan Gaunce, who began as a defensive forward, turned out to be as prominent an AHL scorer as any of them, and the Comets got several solid seasons out of Alex Grenier while he was aging out as a prospect – but he never topped 0.7 points per game in any season.

In fact, in four seasons, no Comet has played more than 15 regular season games with the Comets and scored more than 0.9 points per game. Even the vets that have led the offence at various points have done so with less than incredible scoring numbers.

As a side note, Sven Baertschi is the only player in Comets history to average a point per game or more in more than 10 games played (15 points in 15 games in 2014-15).

In that same span across the AHL, 111 players scored at least 0.9 points per game in single seasons, with 68 scoring more than a point per game (greater than 15 games played). Those point per game players have come from 29 different teams, and 24 different franchises after accounting for relocations, leaving the Comets as one of just six AHL franchises to not have a large-sample point per game scorer in the past four seasons.

Two players crested a point per game for the Comets in limited action last season: Michael Chaput (13 points in 10 games) and Nikolay Goldobin (4 points in 3 games). It’s feasible that both players could do so again. Brock Boeser, who scored five points in nine NHL games after scoring 94 points in 74 NCAA games, could conceivably do the same.

Then there’s Dahlen. He put up 45 points in 44 games in Sweden’s second tier professional league, Allsvenskan, last year. According to data that I’ve collected for SEAL adjustments, between 2000-01 and 2015-16, forwards aged-25 and under moving from Allsvenskan one year to the AHL the following year retained 94% of their point per game totals, giving Dahlen a chance to be nearly as productive as the first three.

Next we come to Jayson Megna. As maligned as Megna was at the NHL level last year, he is a reliable point producer at the AHL level. He owns a career 0.52 point per game rate in the American League, and put up three points in four games at the beginning of last season while playing with Michael Chaput. That’s a dip from the first four, but at this point we’re talking about the fifth or so best forward on the roster.

Jake Virtanen is a bit of a wild card. His struggles were well documented last season, but the 13 points he scored in 55 NHL games as a teenager should indicate that he’s capable of producing a lot more than the 0.29 points per game he scored in the AHL last year. After a solid summer to re-condition and re-focus, having him produce at a half point per game in the AHL shouldn’t be an unreasonable bar for him to top, especially if here’s surrounded by other talented players.

Lastly, although I’ve focused on these six, there’s still a chance that the Comets bring back Darren Archibald and Cody Kunyk, who scored at 0.65 and 0.61 points per game respectively last season, while receiving middle six minutes for most of the year, but were asked to carry the load offensively later on.

Another positive factor is the fact that they’d all be playing there together. Not only will playing with other highly skilled players increase the odds of high-output seasons, it may also make being there in the first place a more palatable experience. Each of Boeser, Virtanen and Goldobin has had a taste of the NHL, with varying degrees of length of level of success. They might feel that they deserve a shot at the highest level, and starting the season in the AHL might be disappointing. But perhaps being mired in the minors doesn’t feel so bad when you look around and see two or three other high octane forward prospects. Perhaps the thought of being a damn good American League is more acceptable when juxtaposed against the idea of being on a mediocre-at-best NHL team, knowing that they’ll be in the NHL soon enough anyway.

Hell, they could be in the NHL later that season, when injuries hit, or the trade deadline comes around. I could see the Comets functioning like the 2015-16 Marlies, stocked with prospects that are probably NHL ready, but are kept down in the minors because their parent clubs are getting pummeled on a routine basis. Late in the season, they appear with the big club en masse and demonstrate what they’ve learned while playing together down below.

I’d like to note that I’d be in full support of this, and that’s partially why I was supportive of what the Canucks did in free agency. While I do think the “let your prospects get overripe in the AHL” gets a little more credit than it deserves, I think the benefits are increased when there are a handful of high-end prospects playing their together.

Remember, this is just a hypothetical experiment, and one that relies on the fairly unrealistic and unlikely event that the Canucks open the season in perfect health. But, on the off chance that that were to come to fruition, I think we’ll see a very formidable offence down on the farm. It’s not necessarily going to be one of the AHL’s best, but put against the impotent offences throughout Utica’s brief history as Vancouver’s affiliate, this could be the most potent offence that the Comets have ever had.