Utica Week in Review: November 23rd

8 years ago

Photo Credit: Lindsay A. Mogle / Utica Comets

The Comets played another three-in-three last weekend and finally managed to break up their losing streak in the final game, halting it at four games. Offense continues to be a bit of an issue for the Canucks’ affiliate, who have scored just 11 goals in their past five games, while allowing 17 in the same span.

On the bright side, the prospects are still contributing to what success Utica can muster as Hunter Shinkaruk, Brendan Gaunce and Alex Grenier all lit the lamp at least once on the weekend while Jordan Subban had three primary assists.

I’m taking over the Comets Weekly Report from Jeff from this point on; given that I already watch all the games and obsess over the stats, it just makes sense. Let’s take a look at last week’s games and who stood out.

The Games

November 20th vs Hartford: 3 – 2 Loss

The Utica Comets losing streak was extended to three games, as the Hartford Wolf Pack snapped a seven-game losing streak, with 3-2 victory over the Comets at The AUD on Friday night.
Brendan Gaunce (2-0-2) scored both Comets goals, his fifth and sixth of the season. Richard Bachman in his first home start as a member of the Comets, made 21 saves in defeat.
The scoring started quick as Wolf Pack’s forward Matt Bodie scored a power-play goal just 4:51 into the first period. The tally was assisted by Luke Adam and Tanner Glass. Luke Adam added a goal of his own when seconds after assisting on the power-play goal he found the back the net. Adam’s goal staked the Wolf Pack to a 2-0 first period lead.
Gaunce was able to cut the Wolf Pack’s lead in half when he scored 13:38 into the first period. Jordan Subban connected with Gaunce on a pass, behind the Wolf Pack’s defense. Gaunce, on a breakway, ripped a wrist shot past Hellberg for the Comets first goal of the game.
The Wolf Pack regained their two-goal lead in the second period when Travis Oleksuk recorded a goal 6:10 into the second period. Ryan Bourque and Tommy Hughes assisted on the play.
With just 1:03 to play in the third, Gaunce gave the Comets hope with his second goal of the night. With a 5-on-4 advantage due to an empty-net, Gaunce chipped home a rebound over Skapski. Alexandre Grenier unleashed the original shot that was denied, after he received a pass in the slot from Hunter Shinkaruk.
With the loss the Comets record falls to 5-7-1-1, while the Wolf Pack’s win advances their record to 7-7-2-0.
The Comets play at home again tomorrow when they take on the Bridgeport Sound Tigers for the second time this season. The Comets will look to redeem themselves after the 3-2 overtime loss to the Sound Tigers back on Nov 1. Puck drop is scheduled for 7 pm.

Per the Utica Comets press release.

November 21st vs Bridgeport: 4 – 2 Loss

The Utica Comets losing streak ran to a season-high four games after the Bridgeport Sound Tigers defeated the Comets 4-2 Saturday night at the Utica Memorial Auditorium.
Carter Bancks (1-0-1), and Alex Friesen (1-0-1) scored for the home team, while Joe Cannata made 28 saves in the loss.
Bancks opened up the game’s scoring with the team’s second short-handed tally of the season 7:48 into the game. Bancks jammed home a rebound after Sound Tiger’s goaltender Stephon Williams denied Wacey Hamilton’s shot on the two-on-one break. Alex Biega added the secondary assist.
Bridgeport scored two unanswered goals off the sticks of Scott Mayfield and James Wright, before the Comets struck again.
Friesen buried his first goal of the season after he collected a loose puck in the slot and wristed it through traffic and past Williams. The goal, a power-play goal, tied the game at 2-2 with 1:46 left to play in the second period. Jon Landry, in his first game as a Comet, teamed up with Andrey Pedan to assist on the goal.
In a span of 28 seconds, Matt Carkner and Jesse Graham each scored for the Sound Tigers to finish the game’s scoring.
After tonight’s loss, the Comets record fell to 5-8-1-1 and the Bridgeport Sound Tigers advance to 13-4-1-0. The Comets power-play unit converted on one of their nine chances, while the penalty-killing unit was a perfect 5-for-5 on the night.
The Comets next game is on the road against the Hartford Wolf Pack. After falling short to them at home on Friday night, this will be their third time meeting this season. Puck drop is scheduled for 3:00pm.

Per the Utica Comets press release.

November 22nd @ Hartford: 3 – 2 Win

Buoyed by three unanswered goals, the Utica Comets came back from an early 2-0 deficit to defeat the Hartford Wolf Pack 3-2 Sunday afternoon at the XL Center. The win was the first time the Comets won a game in which they exited a period trailing.
Hunter Shinkaruk (1-0-1) continued his torrid pace to start the season with his 11th goal of the year. . Alexandre Grenier (1-1-2), and Jordan Subban (0-2-2) enjoyed multi-point nights. Richard Bachman recorded his first win as a Comet with a 16-save performance.
The Wolf Pack jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead when they scored on their first two shots of the game. Nick Tarnasky, on a two-on-one rush, beat Bachman with a wrist shot after a Comets neutral zone turnover.
Just a minute later, Jayson Megna scored his fourth goal of the season with a wrap-around, this one coming on the power play.
The Comets finally solved Mackenzie Skapski about midway through the second period. On the power play, Jordan Subban hammered a slap on net that Skapski denied. Grenier collected the puck and backhanded it over the sprawled out goaltender for his first power-play goal of the season, and third goal overall.
Shinkaruk re-gained a share of the American Hockey League lead in goals with his 11th goal of the season, his sixth on the power-play. Grenier cleanly won an offensive zone draw directly to Subban, who quickly settled the puck and slid it Shinkaruk. From the right face-off circle, Shinkaruk rifled a wrist shot past Skapski to knot the game at 2-2.
The Comets came out firing in the third period and their efforts paid off in the form of a go-ahead goal. Darren Archibald put home a rebound that came off of an Alex Biega blast just 4:49 into the third period.
With the win the Comets record improved to 6-8-1-1 on the season, while the win dropped the Wolf Pack’s record to 8-9-2-0 this season. The Comets power play converted on two of their five attempts, while the penalty-killing until was successful five out of six times.
The Comets next game is Wednesday night at The AUD when they welcome the Lehigh Valley Phantoms to the Mohawk Valley. Puck drop is scheduled for 7p.m. for the Comets 24thconsecutive sold out home game.

Per the a Utica Comets press release.

The Lines

Head coach Travis Green rotated three different centres on to the Comets top line this weekend between Shinkaruk and Grenier in order to spark some offense. Friday’s game was likely AHL rookie Cole Cassels’ best opportunity of the season, but unfortunately, nothing came of it. He continues to sit on a solitary power play assist as his only point in 12 games this season.

As is often the case in three-in-three weekends, some of the rookies were rested for a game – both Subban and Cassels were healthy scratched once. Brendan Gaunce was scratched during Sunday’s game, and as of yet I’ve been unable to ascertain the reason. It’s not like he’s a candidate for a healthy scratch like he was last season – Gaunce is third on the team scoring as well as likely being the team’s most used player, getting first unit power play time and being one of the team’s most frequent penalty killers. I have to assume that he was a little banged up and needed a maintenance day – hopefully it’s nothing serious.

Ronalds Kenins is still injured as well, and Curtis Valk appears to be nearing a return, though he’ll likely go to Kalamazoo to get his legs back – the 22-year old hasn’t played a professional hockey game in nearly a calendar year.

The Comets typical top pairing of Andrey Pedan and Taylor Fedun was not together at all this week, as Pedan was suspended during Friday’s game and Fedun missed Saturday and Sunday as a Vancouver call up (though he didn’t play there either). Instead, Pedan was reunited with captain Alex Biega, the two of whom comprised the top pairing at the start of the season.

The Stats

	No	Name	GP	G	A	P	+/-	Sh	PIM
D	2	T. Ehrhardt	3	0	0	0	-3	5	2
D	3	A. Biega	3	0	2	2	0	8	2
D	7	J. Subban	2	0	3	3	0	6	2
C	8	A. Friesen	3	1	0	1	-2	5	6
LW	9	H. Shinkaruk	3	1	1	2	-2	5	2
LW	10	B. Gaunce	2	2	0	2	0	5	0
D	11	J. Negrin	3	0	0	0	-1	1	0
LW	12	J. Kurtz	1	0	0	0	-1	0	5
D	13	D. Daniels	2	0	0	0	-2	2	2
C/RW	14	M. Zalewski	3	0	0	0	-1	8	2
RW	16	J. LaBate	2	0	0	0	-1	3	0
RW	17	N. Jensen	3	0	1	1	-1	6	2
C	18	L. Vey	3	0	0	0	0	4	2
D	20	J. Landry	2	0	1	1	-1	1	0
LW	22	B. Jones	3	0	0	0	-1	8	9
C/RW	24	C. Cassels	2	0	0	0	-1	1	0
LW	25	D. Archibald	2	1	0	1	+1	6	0
D	27	T. Fedun	1	0	0	0	+1	1	0
RW	28	A. Grenier	3	1	2	3	-2	6	0
RW	34	C. Bancks	3	1	0	1	+1	4	2
C	36	W. Hamilton	3	0	1	1	+1	4	4
D	37	A. Pedan	2	0	1	1	-1	3	2

The Comets bumped their Estimated Fenwick Close up half a point to 52.7% this week according to CHL stats.com, which is surprising considering that they continue to handily outshoot their opponents, this week doing so 93-74. Utica currently has a PDO of .978, which is seventh worst in the AHL after a weekend in which their PDO was a woeful .954. The Comets are being hurt on both sides of the puck here, scoring on 7.5% of shots and saving shots at a rate of just 88.7%, both well below league average.

Sunday’s win was oddly significant: it marked the first time in franchise history that a goalie (Richard Bachman) whose first name didn’t start with a ‘J’ won a game for the Comets. Jacob Markstrom, Joacim Ericsson and Joe Cannata had accounted for every win in Comets history, while Bachman, Pat Nagle, Clay Witt and Mathieu Corbeil had previously combined to go 0-for-6.

Individually, Hunter Shinkaruk and Brendan Gaunce remain productive, while Alex Grenier and Jordan Subban have begun to heat up. Conversely, Nicklas Jensen has cooled off a little and Linden Vey has gotten ice cold (though he still leads the team in primary assists, with six). Shinkaruk, Jensen, Darren Archibald, Taylor Fedun and Andrey Pedan are the only Comets who are above 50% in even strength on ice goals for on the season.

Player of the Week

There are a couple of players that I had my eye on for this week’s prestigious Player of the Week honours, but I’ve decided to give it to Brendan Gaunce. He was the only Comets player to contribute multiple goals this weekend, including this excellent breakaway goal from Friday’s tilt:

Beyond the goals, Gaunce continues to be a central figure for the Comets, counted on for five-on-five offense as well as making a difference on both ends of the special teams spectrum. He maintained an even plus-minus rating over the two games he played, which is actually impressive considering he only suited up during the two losses, games in which many of his teammates came out of looking poor.

Gaunce has been on the ice for nearly half of the Comets even strength goals (during games that he participated in) so far this season, inflating his eTOI to nearly 30 minutes per game. That’s definitely higher than actual time the metric is supposed to estimate, but it wouldn’t be a stretch to assume that Gaunce has still gotten more all situations ice time than any other Comets player so far (which again makes his absence Sunday all the more mysterious).

Funny enough, the above goal was created in large part by the other player I considered as PotW: Jordan Subban, who here creates offense out of nothing by feeding Gaunce with a fantastic indirect banked stretch pass. It was one of Subban’s three primary assists on the weekend – he now trails only Linden Vey in that category.

Looking Ahead

The Comets play three more games this week, on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. First, they’ll host the Lehigh Valley Phantoms (PHI) on Wednesday, who are 8-9-1-0 on the season and are coming off of a 5-2 win against the Providence Bruins. Then they’ll hit the road, taking on the Portland Pirates (FLA) on both Friday and Saturday. Portland is 7-8-0-0 and most recently lost both games of a doubleheader against Hershey. All games are at 4:00pm Pacific time.

Surprisingly, both of these teams are ahead of the Comets in the standings, as the currently boast a 6-8-1-1 record. However they are both teams that Utica is fully capable of taking down, assuming they play to their abilities.

The problem so far this season is that the Comets are getting some subpar goaltending – a harsh change to the dominant performance that Jacob Markstrom put on last season – as well as very little offense from players that aren’t being groomed for NHL jobs (Shinkaruk, Gaunce, Grenier, Pedan, Subban). This is also a big change from last season when the bus was largely powered by vets like Cal O’Reilly, Brandon DeFazio and Bobby Sanguinetti – all of which now play elsewhere.

These are the growing pains that a team faces when the prospects are running the show. The team results are decidedly lacking, but Vancouver fans can at least delight in the individual success of the future Canucks that play there.