Utica Week in Review: January 28th
By Jeremy Davis
8 years ago
Photo credit: Lindsay A. Mogle / Utica Comets
*On the phone with the boss*
“Do I really have to recap that weekend? Seriously? It was just so… Well, fine then.”
Last weekend sucked if you are a Utica Comets fan.
I guess they had it coming. The Comets played just the two games – both against the AHL’s best and most dangerous team. A team that they’d stayed close with in previous encounters. A trend that was cut short last weekend, as the Comets were ground into mulch by the Toronto Marlies.
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The Games
January 23rd, 2016 at Toronto: 4 – 2 Loss
Special teams ruled the Ricoh Coliseum Saturday afternoon as both the Utica Comets and Toronto Marlies recorded multiple power-play goals in the Marlies 4-2 win. The Comets snapped an 0-for-10 skid on the power play and converted on their last two power plays of the evening.
Hunter Shinkaruk (1-0-1), and Jordan Subban (1-0-1) handled the scoring for the Comets, while Joe Cannata recorded the loss. Chris Higgins, in his first game as a Comet, recorded an assist on Subban’s third period goal.
From the Utica Comets Post-game Report.
January 24th, 2016 at Toronto: 7 – 1 Loss
The Utica Comets had no answers for the Toronto Marlies offense in a 7-1 loss at the Ricoh Coliseum on Sunday afternoon. The loss caps off the Comets 0-for-2 weekend north of the border.
Carter Bancks provided the goal-scoring for the Comets (1-0-1), while Richard Bachman suffered the loss by allowing four goals in just 12:11 of action.
From the Utica Comets Post-game Report.
The Lineup
Roster Information:
The biggest news from last week was that Chris Higgins, a veteran of 703 NHL games, joined the Comets for the first time after being waived a couple of weeks ago. Higgins had an assist in his Comets debut. Nation Network Overlord Thomas Drance covered Higgins’ first AHL game in 10 years on Saturday and wrote about it here.
Ashton Sautner sat during the Sunday game, which I believe was a healthy scratch, concurrent with Travis Ehrhardt’s return from an illness. Not much else occurred as far as rosters go. Compared to the flurry of transactions in the past several weeks, this was a pretty uneventful period.
Injury Updates:
Alex Grenier returned from injury last week and played in both games. Meanwhile, Ronalds Kenins and Blair Jones remain out with the injuries that have already sidelined them for three and four weeks respectively. Travis Ehrhardt had missed three games with an illness, but returned for Sunday’s game.
The Stats
| # | Player | GP | G | A | P | +/- | Sh | PIM | |
| 2 | † | T. Ehrhardt | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -5 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | * | A. Biega | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | D. Shields | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 6 | A. Sautner | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 0 | 2 | |
| 7 | J. Subban | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 6 | 0 | |
| 8 | A. Friesen | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -1 | 12 | 0 | |
| 9 | H. Shinkaruk | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -2 | 4 | 0 | |
| 10 | B. Gaunce | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -2 | 5 | 0 | |
| 11 | J. Negrin | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -4 | 0 | 2 | |
| 12 | J. Kurtz | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | |
| 13 | B. Marino | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -4 | 2 | 2 | |
| 14 | * | M. Zalewski | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 15 | † | R. Kenins | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 16 | J. LaBate | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 2 | 4 | |
| 18 | * | L. Vey | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 20 | J. Landry | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -3 | 3 | 0 | |
| 21 | C. Higgins | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -3 | 3 | 0 | |
| 22 | † | B. Jones | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 23 | M. Pereira | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | |
| 24 | C. Cassels | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -3 | 0 | 0 | |
| 25 | D. Archibald | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -2 | 2 | 17 | |
| 27 | T. Fedun | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | |
| 28 | A. Grenier | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -1 | 4 | 0 | |
| 34 | C. Bancks | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 6 | 0 | |
| 36 | W. Hamilton | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | |
| 37 | A. Pedan | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 4 |
† Missed game(s) due to injury; * Missed game(s) due to NHL call up.
Goalies
| # | Goalie | GS | Record | GA | SA | Sv% | GAA |
| 32 | R.Bachman | 1 | 0-1-0 | 4 | 10 | .600 | 19.70 |
| 35 | J. Cannata | 1 | 0-1-0 | 6 | 57 | .895 | 3.35 |
Prospects:
Hunter Shinkaruk scored his team-leading 16th goal of the season on Saturday, giving him a total of 31 points on the year. Interestingly, 16 goal and 15 assists are the exact totals he finished last season with, although it took him substantially fewer games to get there this season.
Jordan Subban had a goal and an assist to continue his impressive rookie season. The fact that he was only minus-1 on the weekend should be viewed as a large positive given that the team was blown apart by the Marlies on Sunday.
Brendan Gaunce and Alex Friesen both tallied single assists last week, while Alex Grenier, Cole Cassels, Andrey Pedan, and Ashton Sautner were all held pointless.
Team Level:
The Comets outshot the Marlies during Saturday’s game, as is their norm, but unfortunately, their goaltending could not hold up. In Sunday’s game, the Marlies absolutely dominated possession from the drop of the puck, outshooting Utica 20-9 in the first period alone. Across the entire weekend, the Comets were outshot 68-62, but the outscored 11-3 (including a single Toronto empty net goal).
Special teams were a major factor in Saturday’s game, with the two teams combining for five power play goals (Utica went 2-for-4 while Toronto went 3-for-5). The opposite was true on Sunday, as the Comets and Marlies went 0-for-6 and 0-for-5 respectively. The downside of that means that the Comets gave up six of the seven goals at even strength, with the remaining goal against being of the short-handed variety.
Player of the Week
Jordan Subban is the player of the week yet again. He was the only Comet to record multiple points last weekend and led the entire team in shots on goal with six. Subban has garnered the attention of many Canucks fans and analysts, and the staff at Canucks Army is no exception. These excerpts from Sunday’s AMA on /r/Canucks:
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Comment from discussion We are CanucksArmy.com, Ask Us Anything!.
Comment from discussion We are CanucksArmy.com, Ask Us Anything!.
It’s hard not to like this guy. He’s fast, he’s creative, he’s strong, and he can really hammer the puck. I think he might need some more time to percolate in the AHL, but I do believe that we’ll be seeing him on an NHL blue line in future.
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Looking Ahead
The Comets have two games coming up this weekend, in Albany on Friday and at home against Rochester on Saturday.
The Albany Devils (23-11-6-0) are sitting in second place in the North Division behind the Toronto Marlies. They have given the Comets fits this season, defeating them 6-1, 3-2 and 4-1 in their first three meetings, although the Comets did manage to wrestle a 1-0 overtime win from the Devils two weeks ago. Albany has the third best goal differential in the Eastern Conference (+23), while the Comets have fallen to -5 in that category, largely as a result of losing eight of their last ten games.
Utica and Rochester have faced off against one another five times already this season, with the Comets coming away victorious in four of those games. With a record of 20-19-2-1, their points percentage is exactly the same as Utica’s. These are the kinds of games that Comets can’t afford to let get away if they intend to make the playoffs for the second straight season.
Both games have a 4:00 pm Pacific puck drop.
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