Utica Comets Week in Review: November 7th -13th

7 years ago

Photo Credit: Lindsay A. Mogle / Utica Comets

The start of the Comets season has not gone as planned, with far more losses than wins in the standings. The injuries at both the NHL and AHL levels have left the Comets with a pretty hollow lineup offensively, which is one of the many factors that made Jake Virtanen’s stint in Utica so interesting – there was finally something exciting happening.

Virtanen’s time is done there (for now), and though he vastly improved from Friday’s game to Saturday’s, it was Curtis Valk driving the offence, and Thatcher Demko stealing the show with his first professional win. Let’s take a closer look at one of the more exciting weekends the Comets have had this season.

The Games

Friday, November 11th vs. Lehigh Valley: 4 – 1 Loss

Official Recap

The night began with Jake Virtanen getting a standing ovation from the Utica crowd, but unfortunately that was about the most notable thing to happen to him all night.

The Comets fell behind early when Corban Knight’s third of the year made it 1-0 just after the two minute mark. An assist wasn’t awarded to Mike Zalewski for a brutal giveaway, but it might as well have been.

That’s the way the scored stayed until early in the second period, when the Phantoms scored shorthanded. You can pin this one on the latest episode of Jordan Subban’s long standing confusion about how to play a 2-on-1. Of course, the kid also has three power play goals this year, so anarchy reigns.

The Phantoms scored again three minutes later (Andrey Pedan with the giveaway on this one), and eventually took a 4-0 lead on a penalty shot. At this point, the game became particularly difficult to continue watching, but I persevered.

Late in the second period, captain Carter Bancks put home a rebound to get the Comets some of their dignity back. The score remained that way all through a third period in which very little happened.

Saturday, November 12th vs. Hartford: 3 – 2 Overtime Win

Official Recap

This one was a bit of a barn burner. The scoring was once again opened by Tanner Glass (is this real life), as he and his teammates jammed home a puck that Demko couldn’t quite get covered up at the side of the net.

Curtis Valk tied the game late in the second period, accepting a hail Mary pass and sniping his fourth goal of the season passed Magnus Hellberg. Matt Bodie retook the lead for the Wolf Pack early in the third, but it took just 2:33 for the Comets to tie the game again on Darren Archibald’s second goal of the season.

After that is when things really got interesting. The Comets got themselves into a mess of penalty trouble in the third period, largely due to unsportsmanlike misconducts (they had four of them). Between 9:26 and 15:52, a 6:26 span, the Comets spent six minutes shorthanded, including a full two minutes of 5-on-3. And yet the AHL’s worst penalty kill didn’t allow a goal, mostly thanks to Thatcher Demko.

After dragging themselves into overtime, the Comets needed just 34 seconds to finish the game, as Curtis Valk got the puck to Darren Archibald, who flipped the puck past Hellberg for his second goal of the game, and the overtime winner.

Roster Report

Lines:

Roster Moves:

As everyone and their dog knows in Vancouver, Jake Virtanen was reassigned to Utica last Wednesday, and his stint was immediately given an expiration date by Jim Benning: he was to play the two games on the weekend and then return to the big club. Despite mixed reports from Willie Desjardins and Trevor Linden, who spoke of “reassessing” after the two games, Virtanen was into recalled on Sunday. If that wasn’t frustrating enough for fans, we’ve since found out that he’s not a lock to get into the lineup anytime soon. Good stuff.

Injury Update:

The Canucks organization has been dealing with a number of injuries early in the season, and it’s been a pain in the ass for both parent and affiliate. They did get Cole Cassels back after he missed seven games with an upper body injury. Here’s a rundown of who’s still on the shelf:

Tom Nilsson has pretty much fully recovered from the ankle injury he sustained at the very beginning of Canucks training camp. He hasn’t played a minute of action at any level this season, so right now it’s about getting back into game shape. Nilsson is a right handed defenceman and could look to snag David Shields’ spot when he’s ready to return.
Marco Roy is practicing with the team. Ashton Sautner (concussion) and Wacey Hamilton (lower body injury) have returned to practice, with Sautner skating in a non-contact jersey.

Carter Bancks and Mike Zalewski were not practicing this morning. Zalewski crashed heavily into the opposing net on a 2-on-1 play on Saturday and struggled to get off the ice.

Up in Vancouver, Jayson Megna looks to be just a couple days away from returning. It seems likely that he’d be sent to Utica as soon as he gets healthy.

Injuries to Jannik Hansen and Chris Tanev have given Michael Chaput and Troy Stecher plenty of ice time. With Hansen still a few weeks away, Chaput will probably stick with the big club. The bigger question is Troy Stecher – he’s beginning to solidify himself as one of the Canucks’ best defencemen, which would make it difficult (if not downright foolish) to send him back to Utica when Tanev returns. If they elect to keep him, it might finally be time for Alex Biega to hit the waiver wire and rejoin the Comets.

The Stats

Skaters:

#		Player	Pos	GP	G	A	P	Sh	PIM
38		C. Valk	C	2	1	2	3	4	2
25		D. Archibald	LW	2	2	0	2	6	2
8		J. Negrin	D	2	0	2	2	4	4
34		C. Bancks	LW	2	1	0	1	1	4
28		A. Grenier	RW	2	0	1	1	5	2
41		C. Billins	D	2	0	1	1	5	0
48		C. Robak	D	2	0	1	1	4	12
5		D. Shields	D	2	0	1	1	0	0
7		J. Subban	D	2	0	0	0	6	0
58		M. Carcone	LW	2	0	0	0	6	2
18		J. Virtanen	RW	2	0	0	0	6	0
14		M. Zalewski	C	2	0	0	0	3	0
16		J. LaBate	LW	2	0	0	0	2	5
19		C. Cassels	C	2	0	0	0	2	6
24		D. Hulak	LW	2	0	0	0	1	0
71		B. Rendulic	RW	2	0	0	0	1	0
21		P. DeSimone	C	2	0	0	0	0	0
37		A. Pedan	D	2	0	0	0	0	4
26	*	M. Chaput	C	0	0	0	0	0	0
4		E. McEneny	D	0	0	0	0	0	0
43	†	T. Nilsson	D	0	0	0	0	0	0
9		Y. Laplante	LW	0	0	0	0	0	0
20		C. Kunyk	C	0	0	0	0	0	0
6	†	A. Sautner	D	0	0	0	0	0	0
11	†	M. Roy	LW	0	0	0	0	0	0
36	†	W. Hamilton	C	0	0	0	0	0	0
23	*	J. Megna	C	0	0	0	0	0	0
2	*	T. Stecher	D	0	0	0	0	0	0

† Missed game(s) due to injury/illness; * Missed game(s) due to NHL call up.

Goalies:

#	Player	GS	Record	GA	SA	Sv%	GAA
30	T. Demko	1	0-1-0	2	31	0.935	1.98
32	R. Bachman	1	0-2-0	4	28	0.857	4.00

Richard Bachman started the Friday game against Lehigh Valley, giving him his third consecutive start. He allowed four goals, though he certainly couldn’t be blamed for most of them. Bachman hasn’t allowed many of the groaner goals that seemed to get by him on a once-per-game basis late last season – he’s been a relatively solid and reliable presence between the pipes. It’s when he ventures out that I get nervous: he’s made a number of highly questionable decisions when playing the puck, and he’s lucky it hasn’t come back to bite him more often.

Demko started the Saturday game and really dug his heels in, looking like he was determined to leave with his first pro victory no matter what it took. Well, it took some spectacular goaltending when the Comets took a rash of unsportsmanlike penalties midway through the third period, but Demko stood his ground and carried his team to overtime, where Darren Archibald finished it off, giving Demko that first professional win.

Prospects:

No info here on Jake Virtanen… He was supposed to get his own section and ended up getting an entire article, which you can find here. (Spoiler, he got no points)
Curtis Valk (who isn’t technically a prospect but I treat him like one anyways) led the way last weekend with a goal and two assists, all of which occurred in Saturday’s game. He’s currently Utica’s best centre in the absence of Michael Chaput and Jayson Megna and likely their most dangerous forward outside of Alex Grenier.

Speaking of Alex Grenier, his point streak came to a halt at four games (on which he had two goals and four assists) after he went pointless on Saturday. He did manage to put up an assist on Friday but both he and Jordan Subban look like they’re missing Chaput’s sweet set ups.
No other prospects had any points on the weekend, which is bad.
Jordan Subban looked oddly ineffective for large stretches of the weekend. While he had some flashes here and there, he was mostly quiet. That in itself may not be that bad, as his five-alarm giveaways also seemed diminished.
Michael Carcone had a heck of a breakaway chance towards the end of the Saturday game, but couldn’t quite bury it. He’s still stuck on one point (a goal) in 10 games.
Joe LaBate’s most notable contribution to last weekend was another round of fisticuffs. He also had two shots on net, and has looked decent as the net front presence on Utica’s first power play unit.
Cole Cassels returned from an upper body injury that held him out for the last seven games. He spent most of the time centering the fourth line, occasionally spotting up the lineup in place of PTO Phil DeSimone, so he got some opportunities with some better players. He was also one of their most prominent penalty killers in the absence of Wacey Hamilton. Between that and Green’s regular 5-on-5 line rotation, Cassels got a decent chunk of ice time.
It was requested a couple of weeks ago that I add Borna Rendulic to this list, since he’s only 24-years old (younger than Grenier) and would qualify as a rookie in the NHL – basically meaning that he would meet the criteria as a Canucks prospect for our rankings, as much as other signings like Zalewski and even Troy Stecher do.
Rendulic looks good out there and is often involved offensively, but the points have certainly not come. He has just one assist in 12 games, which isn’t going to cut it if he wants another crack at the NHL.
Speaking of points not coming, it was another dry weekend for Mike Zalewski. The local boy had a breakout year last season and earned an NHL contract – he’s even had an NHL call up this season – but he hasn’t been great in Utica yet. After ten games, he has just one point: a secondary assist.
“Andrey Pedan had no points” is something I’m writing for the fifth straight week. Not great. Which is unfortunate because he looks solid on the ice every night, I certainly believe he deserves better, but most people are only going to see the boxscores. Pedan is the Comets best defenceman in his own zone, and he at least deserves to get credit for that.
Evan McEneny and Yan-Pavel Laplante were scratched for both games. As anticipated, the addition of Colby Robak looks to have pushed McEneny out of the lineup.

Team Level:

The Comets team stats flipflopped a little bit last weekend from their norm, with an improved penalty kill and a blanked power play. They were also outshot by a small margin in each game and 59-56 over the course of the weekend.

The power play sputtered a lit bit, going 0-for-8 on the weekend. They got plenty of looks (particularly Jake Virtanen on Saturday), but couldn’t get any in the net. Their power play is still converting at an even 20 percent on the season (11 goals on 55 opportunities), which is good for 11th in the AHL.

The penalty kill was the real story on the weekend. At 69.5 percent, it’s the second worst kill in the American League, but last weekend the allowed just one goal on 11 opportunities for a kill rate of 90.9 percent. This is even more incredible when you consider than they spent 2:48 down 5-on-3 against Hartford, during which some of their best defencemen (Grenier and Robak) were among the guilty parties in the box. Much of the credit here goes to Thatcher Demko, who made a large number of saves to keep the game tied while the team was heavily disadvantaged.

Leaders:

Chaput is gone, and Grenier and Subban were fairly stationary this week. Curtis Valk’s three point night put him fourth in team scoring – he’s also tied for the team lead in goals.

Player of the Week

Curtis Valk and his three point night were quite impressive, but Thatcher Demko stole the show with a 29-save performance for his first professional win. Here’s a glimpse of some of his better saves. Yes, it’s mostly focused on the third period, because that’s when the Comets took a rash of penalties and forced themselves to play shorthanded for six minutes of a six and a half minute span, including a 5-on-3 for a full two minutes. This win was all Demko.

It took Demko five games to get his first win, and although his numbers are less than spectacular (3.39 goals against average, .878 save percentage), it shouldn’t do anything to lessen his status as one of the best goaltending prospects in the league. Demko is working regularly with Rollie Melanson to combine pro structure with his natural athleticism and compete level. There are bound to be growing pains in the transition to pro hockey, but Demko has the right mindset to get through it and come out stronger.

Looking Ahead

The Comets play three games this week, and all three are against opponents they haven’t faced yet this season. The Hershey Bears (Washington’s affiliate) are up first on Wednesday. They’re a couple of games above .500 and are averaging a fair number of goals both for and against.

On Friday, they’ll be visited by the Springfield Thunderbirds (Florida), another team that is a couple of games above .500, and on Saturday they’ll face off against long time rivals, the Rochester Americans (Buffalo).

All three games will be at home in Utica as the Comets begin to balance a schedule that started heavily on the road. All three games are at 4:00pm Pacific time.

Lastly, this chart only shows the Eastern Conference, so I’ll have to fill you in: the Comets are dead last in the entire American League. Not good.