Game #10

Rochester Americans at Utica Comets

Saturday, November 2nd, 2019

7:00 pm Eastern/4:00 pm Pacific

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but that winning streak is now behind us and the Comets will have to buckle down if they want to get another one started, but we will get to that in a minute.

The 8-1-0-0 Comets will be welcoming the 6-3-1-1 Rochester Americans, (Buffalo affiliate) to the Adirondack Bank Center for game 10 of the season. The Comets are coming off of that 2-0 loss to Providence yesterday, while the Amerks last played to a 4-2 win over Binghamton.

The Amerks have gone 3-2-1-0 on the road this season, while the Comets show a home record of 5-1-0-0 on the year. The Comets have outscored their opponents by a 39-16 margin, while Rochester has both scored and given up 34 goals.

For once, the Comets won’t be bringing the poorer of the two power plays to the table today as the Amerks have gone 5/54 to give themselves a 9.3% success rate with the extra man. Their penalty kill has given up 13 goals while down a man 47 times for a success rate of 72.3%.

The Comets, for their part, have gone 4/29 with the extra man to give themselves a 13.8% success rate. Their penalty kill remains strong, killing off 31 of 33 power plays that the team has given up for a success rate of 93.9%.

Tage Thompson leads all Rochester scorers with four goals and five helpers to give himself nine points in 11 games, while Jean-Sebastian Dea sits second with five goals and three assists to give himself eight points in 11 games. Curtis Lazar rounds out their top three with two goals and five assists, giving him seven points in nine games.

Brett Murray leads the Amerks rookie crew with one goal and three assists to give himself four points in six games this year. Brogan Rafferty and Olli Juolevi share the Comets rookie lead with five points each through nine games. Rafferty has the edge with his one goal to Olli’s goose egg in that category.

Reid Boucher wears the scoring crown in Utica with 10 goals and three assists through nine games, while the recently recalled Sven Baertschi sits second with two goals and eight assists, giving him 10 points in seven games. Nikolay Goldobin rounds out their top three with one goal and nine assists to give himself 10 points in eight games.

The two clubs have squared off once already this season with the Comets coming away with a convincing 7-1 win. Things might not be as easy this time around.

Sven Baertschi and Reid Boucher lead the series with three points each, while Nikolay Goldobin and Olli Juolevi have picked up two apiece. Eight other players have picked up a single point between the two teams in the series.

The Comets penalty kill went a perfect eight-for-eight in the first game between these two teams, while they went 1/5 with the man advantage.

The Comets lost Reid Boucher in the late going of the second period of yesterday’s game and he did not play again in the contest. We don’t know yet at the time of this writing if he will be available for today’s game. If he can’t go, along with the dinged up Carter Camper and Tyler Graovac, the Comets could have a tough go of it today. Add in the recall of Sven Baertschi and we can see that the team will have to dig deep to pull this one out.

Quinn Hughes got dinged up in Vancouver’s game last night as well, so the possibility that one of the Comets defenders gets summoned to the big club today is a very real thing. We could end up seeing the Comets playing a defender at forward or possibly bringing a player or two up from Kalamazoo if the call-ups/injuries end up taking too big of a bite out of the roster. *Edit, Oscar Fantenberg has been recalled from his conditioning assignment.*

The Comets and Amerks will get underway today at 7:00 pm Eastern/4:00 pm Pacific in Utica. Stay tuned for the CancuksArmy post-game report following the game.