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Comets Militia: Down on the Farm – February 21st, 2015
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Josh W
By Josh W
Feb 21, 2015, 12:00 ESTUpdated:
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Courtesy: TheAHL.com
Welcome back to this weeks Comets Milita report as we review all of the activities of the Utica Comets and the Canucks prospects down in the AHL.  It’s been an active week for the Comets as their d-corps is currently a number of ECHLers as they withstand the domino effects of NHL call-ups.  Still, the Comets managed 4 of 6 points this week and are looking good as we head into the last 1/3rd of the season in the final march towards the Calder Cup
(Editor’s Note: This edition was written before Friday’s game and the results of that game will be written about next week)
Continue past the jump for all your latest in Comets news.

The Statistics

It was a decent week for the Utica Comets as they managed to earn 4 of 6 points and saw a lot of their underlying numbers improve.  Their goal differential, shot differentials, and special teams efficiency all trended upwards.  The only statistics to decrease was their Est. Fenwick Close as the Comets have dropped a second time out of 1st place in the league.

Saturday’s 2-1 OT Win @ Rochester

[ Highlights ] [ Comets Review ]
Pretty low key game.  The Comets scored first halfway through the second and it took a period for Rochester to tie it up.  The game went to OT where the Comets were able to win thanks to the effort of Markstrom.  The powerplay scored a rare goal.

Monday’s 5-7 Loss @ Hamilton

[ Highlights ] [ Comets Review ]
Crazy Monday lunch game as goals were traded back and forth all day.  While the Comets were controlling possession, Joacim Eriksson apparently decided to sleep in letting in 6 goals on 21 shots.  Surprisingly he was not pulled and ended up playing the whole game.

Wednesday’s 5-2 Win vs Texas

[ Highlights ] [ Comets Review ]
A great game for the Comets as they wrapped up the week by playing the Texas Stars, Willie Desjardins’ old team.  They controlled play and they had the PDO – the necessary ingredients to walk away the winners in regular time and earn 4 of 6 points on the week.

Players

NamePosGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPGSOGSoG/GSh%
21
Dustin Jeffrey
C
44
16
22
38
6
14
0.86
84
1.91
19.05%
16
Cal O’Reilly
C
51
5
32
37
-6
8
0.73
64
1.25
7.81%
24
Brandon DeFazio
RW
49
16
15
31
8
58
0.63
119
2.43
13.45%
6
Bobby Sanguinetti
D
42
13
15
28
22
6
0.67
92
2.19
14.13%
28
Alexandre Grenier
RW
42
10
13
23
3
53
0.55
98
2.33
10.20%
10
Brendan Gaunce
LW
49
8
14
22
4
17
0.45
104
2.12
7.69%
17
Nicklas Jensen
RW
38
10
10
20
-12
21
0.53
109
2.87
9.17%
41
Will Acton
C
38
8
9
17
-1
15
0.45
70
1.84
11.43%
9
Hunter Shinkaruk
LW
50
6
11
17
-4
22
0.34
99
1.98
6.06%
25
Darren Archibald
LW
45
7
9
16
11
73
0.36
83
1.84
8.43%
8
Alex Friesen
C
36
6
9
15
9
43
0.42
57
1.58
10.53%
3
Alex Biega
D
42
3
12
15
-2
16
0.36
73
1.74
4.11%
36
Wacey Hamilton
C
31
4
9
13
4
25
0.42
42
1.35
9.52%
37
Andrey Pedan
D
37
2
11
13
8
107
0.35
65
1.76
3.08%
15
Ronalds Kenins
LW
36
5
7
12
6
23
0.33
61
1.69
8.20%
34
Carter Bancks
RW
39
6
4
10
7
35
0.26
55
1.41
10.91%
4
Kane Lafranchise
D
26
2
8
10
0
4
0.38
34
1.31
5.88%
14
Mike Zalewski
LW
29
3
6
9
0
10
0.31
34
1.17
8.82%
26
Frank Corrado
D
21
4
4
8
3
17
0.38
50
2.38
8.00%
2
Travis Ehrhardt
D
27
2
4
6
-1
20
0.22
27
1.00
7.41%
40
Peter Andersson
D
35
2
3
5
10
18
0.14
44
1.26
4.55%
29
Kent Huskins
D
27
1
4
5
5
2
0.19
13
0.48
7.69%
27
Tom Sestito
LW
10
1
0
1
-2
20
0.10
11
1.10
9.09%
11
John Negrin
D
21
0
1
1
2
4
0.05
17
0.81
0.00%
18
Patrick Kennedy
RW
4
0
0
0
1
0
0.00
7
1.75
0.00%
5
Jeremie Blain
D
7
0
0
0
-4
2
0.00
6
0.86
0.00%
If you think the Canucks d-corps have been decimated, the top six of Utica has been comprised of Ehrhardt, Pedan, Andersson, Huskins, Blain and Negrin, thanks to all the call-ups, with Blain quarter-backing the first power-play unit.
We can also review the playing time of all the Comets and look how the time is spread out across all of the players.  We can see the prospects starting to receive more time during even strength but you still have a couple veterans playing in the top pairing and first line.
Also it’s nice to see the Province / Jason Botchford finally catch up to us here at Canucks Army as they discuss the issues we’ve been talking about with the Comets and prospect ice time for months.

Goalies

NameGPMinGASOGAAWLOTSASVSSAV%
Jacob Markstrom
25
1459:55:00
46
4
1.89
16
6
2
700
654
0.934
Joe Cannata
1
59:00:00
2
0
2.03
0
1
0
24
22
0.917
Joacim Eriksson
27
1548:37:00
67
0
2.6
14
7
4
726
659
0.908
Jacob Markstrom is back to being the number 1 goalie in all of the AHL in terms of save percentage while Joacim Eriksson has dropped below average (0.913) thanks to his rough outing on Monday. 

Transactions

  • Alex Biega was recalled to Vancouver for his first NHL stint where he has been posting good possession numbers and even scored a goal.
  • Bobby Sanguinetti has been recalled to Vancouver.
  • Jeremie Blain has been recalled from Kalamazoo and assigned to Utica

Schedule

Reasonable schedule coming up this week.  3 games is about average though the Comets have to play a back-to-back which is built in schedule loss – at least they will be playing at home.  All three games are against weaker teams though the Comets have a losing record against Albany and Hamilton (in a small sample size).

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