Team

Navigation

Canucks News

Editorials

Shows

Nation Sites

The Nation Network

CanucksArmy has no direct affiliation to the Vancouver Canucks, Canucks Sports & Entertainment, NHL, or NHLPA

Comets Militia: Down on the Farm – April 17th, 2015

By Josh W

Apr 17, 2015, 13:00 EDTUpdated:

Comments

Courtesy: Lindsay Mogle

We are back
with this week’s Comets Militia report, where we review all the latest
in news,
statistics, rumours, gossip and made up narratives regarding the
Vancouver Canucks
farm team: The Utica Comets. The Comets continue their winning streak,
as they look towards the Calder Cup and try to win the West.

Read past
the jump to see how this week went down.

The Statistics

The Utica Comets only have 2 games remaining on the schedule and things are looking good for them. While the Kilpatrick Trophy is now out of reach, the Comets have a 2 point lead on first in the Conference and can win the Western banner as well. Looking towards the playoffs, things are also looking good for Utica: they are a top possession team (2nd place), have good goal (5th) and shot differentials (4th place). Their penalty kill is really good while their power play leaves something to be desired. They are in 6th place in the league both for Shots For and Against per game.

We can review their season trend and it is clear to see the dip where their defensive corps had been ravaged to supply able bodies to the affiliate team in Vancouver.

Friday’s 2-3 Loss vs Adirondack

First game of the week was against local rivals Adirondack, and saw Utica’s 10-game winning streak come to an end. The Comets controlled possession but the Flames netminder Doug Carr stood on his head stopping 40 of 42 shots. Despite a Quality Start from Joe Cannata the Comets could not score enough to win. The Comets goals came from Alex Grenier (on the PP) and Hunter Shinkaruk.

Saturday’s 2-3 SO Loss @ Binghamton

Without any rest, Utica was off to face Binghamton and thanks to another goaltender making 40 of 42 saves the Comets just could not score enough to win. The Comets received goals from Shinkaruk and DeFazio (on the power play). The game went to the shootout where not a single Comet (Grenier, DeFazio, O’Reilly) was able to score. Joacim Eriksson played this game and despite a Quality Start it was not enough to win.

Joe LaBate also earned his first game with the Comets in his try out. In this game he had 4 shots on goal and 2 PIMs.

You can read what they are saying about this game.

Sunday’s 2-1 Win vs Syracuse

Right back at home, another game without rest, the final back-to-back-to-back of the year. The Comets faced the Syracuse Crunch on Sunday, dominated possession and this time were able to eek out the win. The usual suspects scored, both coming from the power play, while the penalty kill remained perfect. Jacob Markstrom returned from his stint in the NHL, not having played hockey in a while, and was able to give the team a Quality Start to help them win.

With more points than Syracuse in their 4 match ups, the Comets have won the Galaxy Cup for a second time!

Wednesday’s 5-6 OT Loss @ Binghamton

The final game of the week was a re-match against the Binghamton Senators and it was just a weird game all around. To go over the usual items: The Comets controlled possession but did not have the puck luck (thanks in part to a terrible relief play from Joacim Eriksson) and ultimately lost 5 – 6 in OT. A large number of Comets were involved in scoring, but none were on the powerplay. The usually strong penalty kill allowed 2 goals in 3 attempts.

Part of the reason why this game was weird was because the Senators played 3 different goalies. You will notice that three is one more than the two a hockey team is allowed to dress on a given night:

The Senators started with Chris Driedger, who was injured in the first period. In relief for him was Peter Mannino who was ultimately ejected from the game for fighting Jacob Markstrom. Now I am not sure of the exact rules but in emergency situations teams can dress a third goalie so I am not sure where he came from but Scott Greenham dressed midway through the game and ended up playing.

Greenham actually leads all Binghamton goalies in games played this season though, so it’s not as if the Sens were dressing some random 3rd-stringer off the street.

Wait a minute… Jacob Markstrom was ejected for fighting? It all started when Darren Kramer was following Frank Corrado around the ice, trying to goad him into a fight. Finally, Kramer jumped Corrado from behind and all the Comets went to help him including Markstrom. This provoked Mannino to come to centre ice to challenge Markstrom and they eventually went at it. The fight itself wasn’t that eventful for a goalie fight (let alone a hockey fight), but goalie fights are not very common. Looks like Markstrom was trying to earn him a roster position in the NHL by establishing his grit.

Darren Kramer has been suspended for two games as this was his 4th game misconduct on the year.

The Players

	Name	Pos	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PPG	SOG	SoG/G	Sh%
47	Sven Bärtschi	LW	13	7	6	13	5	4	1.00	31	2.38	22.58%
16	Cal O’Reilly	C	74	10	50	60	8	10	0.81	94	1.27	10.64%
89	Cory Conacher	LW	18	6	8	14	5	22	0.78	62	3.44	9.68%
6	Bobby Sanguinetti	D	61	16	24	40	24	16	0.66	138	2.26	11.59%
28	Alexandre Grenier	RW	65	17	25	42	12	71	0.65	178	2.74	9.55%
24	Brandon DeFazio	RW	73	21	22	43	5	92	0.59	185	2.53	11.35%
8	Alex Friesen	C	58	9	20	29	12	57	0.50	84	1.45	10.71%
44	Adam Clendening	D	9	0	4	4	3	20	0.44	20	2.22	0.00%
17	Nicklas Jensen	RW	57	13	12	25	-15	35	0.44	151	2.65	8.61%
26	Frank Corrado	D	33	6	8	14	11	31	0.42	71	2.15	8.45%
9	Hunter Shinkaruk	LW	72	16	14	30	1	28	0.42	154	2.14	10.39%
41	Will Acton	C	51	12	9	21	-4	28	0.41	94	1.84	12.77%
10	Brendan Gaunce	LW	72	11	17	28	-1	31	0.39	152	2.11	7.24%
36	Wacey Hamilton	C	39	5	10	15	7	27	0.38	53	1.36	9.43%
25	Darren Archibald	LW	68	13	10	23	8	103	0.34	127	1.87	10.24%
37	Andrey Pedan	D	42	3	11	14	6	70	0.33	79	1.88	3.80%
3	Alex Biega	D	60	3	16	19	-3	24	0.32	121	2.02	2.48%
20	Ben Hutton	D	4	1	0	1	1	2	0.25	4	1.00	25.00%
34	Carter Bancks	RW	57	6	8	14	7	44	0.25	65	1.14	9.23%
14	Mike Zalewski	C	53	3	9	12	-6	14	0.23	58	1.09	5.17%
40	Peter Andersson	D	51	2	8	10	13	20	0.20	63	1.24	3.17%
2	Travis Ehrhardt	D	39	3	4	7	-10	22	0.18	44	1.13	6.82%
29	Kent Huskins	D	48	1	5	6	6	8	0.13	30	0.63	3.33%
11	John Negrin	D	33	0	3	3	4	10	0.09	27	0.82	0.00%
19	Joseph LaBate	C	2	0	0	0	0	2	0.00	5	2.50	0.00%

Some End of Year Awards that were handed out to players:

Jacob Markstrom: 3-Stars & Media Person of the Year
Brendan Gaunce: Most Improved Player
Bobby Sanguinetti: Best Defencemen
Alex Biega: Most Classy Guy (Dave Armstrong Award) & Community Involvement (Thomas Lindsay Award). He was also the Comets nomination for the AHL All-American award.
Carter Bancks: Most Heart
Cal O’Reilly: Coaches Favourite (/ MVP)

Frank Corrado received some accolades.
Brandon DeFazio has also become the franchise’s 2nd 20-goal scorer!
Cal O’Reilly is on a 14 game point streak.
In the trade that still doesn’t make sense, since the trade deadline Cory Conacher has 14 points in 18 games while Dustin Jeffrey has 21 points in 17 games.

The Goaltenders

	Name	GP	Mins	GA	SO	GAA	W	L	OT	SA	SVS	SV%
1	Jacob Markstrom	30	1759:36:00	55	5	1.88	20	7	2	825	770	0.933
2	Joe Cannata	5	301:46:00	10	0	1.99	3	2	0	147	137	0.932
3	Joacim Eriksson	41	2371:06:00	100	0	2.53	22	10	7	1087	987	0.908
4	Pat Nagle	1	58:42:00	3	0	3.07	0	1	0	28	25	0.893

Jacob Markstrom will likely finish 2nd in the AHL in save percentage.

Transactions

Jeremie Blain was recalled and sent back down to Kalamazoo
Sven Baertschi was returned to Utica
Joe Cananta was returned to Kalamazoo

“Did Baertschi really think he’d stay over me??”
#GameofNucks pic.twitter.com/8Rmps8qQdH

— Wyatt Arndt (@TheStanchion) April 12, 2015

Still no word on players who have finished in the CHL (Jordan Subban, Evan McEneny) or the NCAA (Patrick McNally)

The Schedule

Two last games of the regular season are this weekend for the Comets – they could earn themselves the Western Conference banner as early as Friday night. Hopefully some of the key players will get some rest and we can see more of Joseph LaBate (as he continues his try-out) and Ben Hutton. Both games this week are against teams the Comets have had success against – despite being on the road, in a back-to-back, they are only an hour bus ride away.