Utica Comets Week in Review: January 16th – 22nd

7 years ago

Photo Credit: Lindsay A. Mogle / Utica Comets

If you blinked you might have missed it, but don’t look away now – the Comets are suddenly a powerhouse.

Travis Green’s AHL club is giving new meaning to the term streaky. After winning seven out of nine games, the Comets proceeded to lose nine straight – and now they’ve won eight of their last nine. This isn’t a strategy that I’d recommend using long term, but it seems to be working for them right now, so why not just enjoy it?

There’s been hot goaltending and prospects getting points (even Virtanen!), league honours, first-time call ups, and some awesome new novelty jerseys revealed. Everything’s coming up rosy in Utica.

The Games

Tuesday, January 17th at St. John’s: 5 – 2 Win

Wednesday, January 18th at St. John’s: 3 – 1 Win

Saturday, January 21st at Syracuse: 4 – 0 Win

Player of the Week

Give credit where it’s due, Cody Kunyk may not be a Canucks prospect, but he earned the player of the week honours this time around with six points, including four goals, in just three games.

As you may have noticed in the video, luck played a large factor in at least a couple of the goals, but that in itself shouldn’t diminish Kunyk’s accomplishment.

Kunyk was one of the least sexy names that the Comets brought in during the off season. While players like Michael Chaput, Jayson Megna and Borna Rendulic were given NHL contracts, Kunyk came in on an AHL deal. He spent last season in Denmark, captaining the Gentofte Stars. The previous season however he spent with the Syracuse Crunch, collecting 26 points in 69 games. After a solid week, he’s on pace to set a career high in points.

Roster Report

Lines:

Injury Update:

Travis Green has since stated the Rendulic and Laplante are both “close” to returning, while the other three have not resumed practicing with the team.

Tom Nilsson recently returned from injury. He’s been limited to just eight games this season, having to overcome multiple long term stretches on the injured reserve.

Thatcher Demko was ill two weekends ago, then was relegated to strictly a back up while he recovered last week (Richard Bachman having an insanely hot stretch made this an even easier decision), but it looks like he’ll be back in the saddle soon enough. After all, he’ll need to show off his sweet new gear this weekend:

Roster Moves:

The only changes to the Comets roster in the past week is the swap of Andrey Pedan and Jordan Subban. While it’d be ideal if the Canucks called Subban up because they’re ready to give him a shot, in actuality we discovered that it’s because Pedan had run out of time before his waivers expired – any more days on the roster and he’d have to be exposed to waivers before being sent back to Utica.

Subban, who is on an ELC, will face no such problem no matter how long he remains in Vancouver.

The Stats

Skaters:

You’d be forgiven if you had forgotten all about Evan McEneny as a prospect. He was never drafted by the Canucks, but rather signed as a draft-related free agent after not being selected in his first year of eligibility. He played his first season of professional hockey last year, and after a couple of game he was relegated to the ECHL, where he sustained a major injury that put him out about two and a half months. Upon his return, he was very productive, tallying a goal and 24 assists in 36 games.
This season he started off a little slow, struggling to stick in the lineup. However, he seemed to earn the trust of Travis Green and is now a staple, avoiding the rotating scratches that still take some of his peers out of the lineup. He’s also a regular on the penalty kill and the second unit power play, and has seen time up the lineup on occasion. More recently, he’s rewarded the coaching staff’s faith with some production. His three goals are third best among Comets defencemen, and his seven points are fourth best.
A strong finish to the season could garner him some consideration as a call up in the event of late season injuries, especially if the Canucks are still wary about bringing Pedan back up and risking him on waivers if he needs to go back down.
Mike Zalewski has had a rough go of it this year, which seems to be a running theme among a number of the Canucks’ AHL prospects. After a breakout year in 2015-16, the New Hartford native has been limited to just 21 games out of a possible 40 so far, as well as a single game in the NHL with the Canucks. He’s struggled to produce when in the lineup, tallying just six points on the year, which is why it was so nice to see him rewarded with a trio of points last week.
Jake Virtanen technically scored a goal last week – although it wasn’t actually awarded to him until yesterday. The artist formerly known as Big Country has faded into obscurity a little bit. Even the opposing teams’ broadcasts crews don’t remember who he is anymore. Just listen to them butcher his name:

He’s a former sixth overall pick for Heaven’s sake! Jeez!

Cole Cassels picked up another two points last week, bringing him to five and matching his total from last season, in just under half the games. More impressive might be the seven shots on net he had in three games. Cassels has had a notoriously low shot rate in his time with the Comets – his 1.21 shots per game is tied for 11th among Comets forwards with at least 10 games played.
Alex Grenier, Curtis Valk and Darren Archibald cooled off this week after going on a tear in the two weeks previous. The combined for just one goal – an Archibald empty netter on which the other two received assists. In their stead, the second line of Pascal Pelletier, Cody Kunyk, and Mike Zalewski buoyed the offence.

Goalies:

#	Player	GS	Record	TOI	GA	SA	Sv%	GAA
30	T. Demko	0	0-0-0	0.00	0	0	N/A	N/A
32	R. Bachman	3	3-0-0	180.00	3	81	0.963	1.00

When Demko fell ill a couple of weekends ago, Richard Bachman was forced to start several games in a row – something that doesn’t often occur with the Comets. However, he’s been phenomenal, and a major part of the winning streak that the Comets are on. Bachman has won his last five starts, allowing just five goals in that time. That’s pretty freakin’ impressive.

Bachman was named the AHL player of the week as a reward for his phenomenal play.

As mentioned above, Demko was held out of game action by a combination of illness and Bachman playing out of his mind. Green won’t keep running with the same goalie forever though – you can expect Demko to return to the crease this week.

Team Level:

The Comets power play wasn’t a major factor in their offensive prowess last week, scoring just once on eight opportunities (one of Cody Kunyk’s four goals). At 16.5 percent, it’s still more impressive than what the Canucks are dealing with, but not by a lot. The call up of Jordan Subban is certainly not going to help in that regard, and it’s pretty clear that they’re missing Michael Chaput, who worked the half wall early in the season. The Comets’ power play was operating at 23.4 percent when Chaput was called up, and it has been a slow decrease in effectiveness since then.

One thing that has continued to improve is the penalty kill, which was a prefect 10-for-10 last week. Their overall rate is now up to 81.7 percent, which is the highest it’s been all season.

Looking Ahead

Lo and behold, the Comets are just a couple of points out of eight place in the Eastern Conference. However, because the AHL has gotten rid of their excessively confusing divisional crossover rules and decreed that the top four teams in each division make the playoffs, they’re technically already in playoff position. Not bad for a three week hot streak.

Tonight the Comets will host the Springfield Thunderbirds. Unfortunately, Jared McCann is still up with the Panthers, so there will be no Virtanen v. McCann battles in the American League. This weekend, the Comets have a double header against two teams much higher in the standings than they are. The first is a Friday night battle with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, who are a scary dominant team. It’s the first of four meetings this season against the AHL’s best squad.

Then, on Saturday, the Comets will host the Syracuse Crunch, whom they dismantled last Saturday.

Here’s to keeping the hot streak going!