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Comets Militia: Down on the Farm – March 27th, 2015
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Josh W
By Josh W
Mar 27, 2015, 11:00 EDTUpdated:
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Courtesy: UticaComets.com
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.
Read past
the jump to see what went down.

The
Statistics

It’s been
an excellent week for the Comets as they are on a five game winning streak – a
franchise record – held their opponents to 5 goals against in 3 games, and have
broken last year’s points and wins total. 
For a few days the Comets were even back in 1st place in the
Conference until San Antonio played and won one more game. 
As the
Comets are starting to see reinforcements in their roster it is no surprise the
success is returning.  Nearly every team
level statistic improve this week as their possession, goal differential, shot
different, shooting percentage, save percentage, and power play improved.  The penalty kill was the combo breaker as their PK
efficiency dropped.
With only 7
games left on the calendar not a single team in the AHL has secured a playoff
position; with another win or two this week the Comets will clinch a playoff
position.

Friday’s 4-2 Win vs Rochester

[ CometsRecap ] [ Highlights ]
The first
game of the week went nearly as well as the Comets could have hoped for.  They did find themselves down 2-0 at the end
of the first but then 4 unanswered goals from Canucks prospects (same as a game
last week), including 2 on the power play, was enough to secure the win.  The Comets dominated possession, had the puck
luck, Eriksson was there to provide a Quality
Start and the penalty kill was perfect. 
Not much else you could have asked for.

Saturday’s
4-2 Win @ Syracuse

[ CometsRecap ] [ Highlights ]
The next
night the Comets followed a similar script. 
The Syracuse Crunch were the first to get on the board but the Comets
were able to score 4 times to see the final score at 4-2.  Goals came from Baertschi, Conacher and
Shinkaruk while Friesen earned himself 3 assists.  The Comets dominated possession, puck luck
was tipped in their favour and Joe Cannata also posted a Quality Start – his first AHL game in a while.  The biggest mark against the Comets in this
game was their special teams were unable to score and allowed the Crunch to
score twice on the penalty kill.

Sunday’s
4-1 Win @ Rochester

[ CometsRecap ] [ Highlights ]
Third game
of the week, despite being the third game in a back-to-back-to-back, followed
the exact same story.  The Comets
dominated play, the hockey gods were in their favour, and Joacim Eriksson
posted another Quality Start.  Goals came from Archibald, Corrado, Shinkaruk
and Baertschi who has now scored 10 points in 9 Comets games (including 5 goals
and a 27% shooting percentage).  The end
of the game got a bit rough with Rochester being penalized for charging the
goaltender and Conacher penalized for diving. 
Ben Hutton has still not played in an AHL game this year and is starting
to fall to the bottom of the current Utica’s deep defensive corps depth.

The Players

NamePosGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPGSOGSoG/GSh%
16
Cal O’Reilly
C
65
7
42
49
0
10
0.75
83
1.28
8.43%
24
Brandon DeFazio
RW
64
18
20
38
5
76
0.59
157
2.45
11.46%
28
Alexandre Grenier
RW
56
14
23
37
8
64
0.66
140
2.50
10.00%
6
Bobby Sanguinetti
D
53
15
20
35
23
14
0.66
124
2.34
12.10%
47
Sven Baertschi
LW
9
5
5
10
6
4
1.11
18
2.00
27.78%
89
Cory Conacher
LW
9
1
3
4
3
6
0.44
23
2.56
4.35%
10
Brendan Gaunce
LW
64
11
14
25
1
31
0.39
138
2.16
7.97%
8
Alex Friesen
C
49
9
15
24
13
51
0.49
76
1.55
11.84%
17
Nicklas Jensen
RW
50
12
11
23
-15
35
0.46
139
2.78
8.63%
41
Will Acton
C
45
11
8
19
-1
26
0.42
73
1.62
15.07%
9
Hunter Shinkaruk
LW
63
10
11
21
-5
26
0.33
129
2.05
7.75%
25
Darren Archibald
LW
59
10
10
20
8
87
0.34
113
1.92
8.85%
37
Andrey Pedan
D
42
3
11
14
6
70
0.33
79
1.88
3.80%
3
Alex Biega
D
51
3
14
17
-4
20
0.33
104
2.04
2.88%
36
Wacey Hamilton
C
31
4
9
13
4
25
0.42
42
1.35
9.52%
44
Adam Clendening
D
38
1
12
13
-4
20
0.34
89
2.34
1.12%
34
Carter Bancks
RW
50
6
5
11
6
42
0.22
60
1.20
10.00%
14
Mike Zalewski
C
44
3
8
11
-6
10
0.25
51
1.16
5.88%
26
Frank Corrado
D
24
5
5
10
5
17
0.42
54
2.25
9.26%
40
Peter Andersson
D
50
2
7
9
11
20
0.18
63
1.26
3.17%
2
Travis Ehrhardt
D
36
3
4
7
-8
22
0.19
38
1.06
7.89%
29
Kent Huskins
D
41
1
5
6
7
6
0.15
27
0.66
3.70%
5
Jeremie Blain
D
14
0
4
4
-2
2
0.29
17
1.21
0.00%
11
John Negrin
D
29
0
3
3
3
6
0.10
26
0.90
0.00%
Remember, if you think it’s funny to call Baertschi “Bae” you’re calling him crap:
Brendan Gaunce also received some love from the Metro News.

The Goaltenders

NameGPMinGASOGAAWLOTSASVSSAV%
1
Jacob Markstrom
28
1665:37:00
53
5
1.91
19
7
2
785
732
0.932
2
Joe Cannata
2
119:00:00
4
0
2.02
1
1
0
55
51
0.927
3
Pat Nagle
1
58:42:00
3
0
3.07
0
1
0
28
25
0.893
4
Joacim Eriksson
36
2095:43:00
89
0
2.55
19
10
5
964
875
0.908
With the AHL league average save percentage this year at 0.913, the Utica Comets are proudly claiming that Eriksson is in charge!

The Transactions

  • Patrick
    Kennedy  was recalled from Kalamazoo and
    returned 4 days later
  • Adam
    Clendening has been returned on loan from Vancouver so he can get some playing
    time.

The Schedule

The
schedule is quite interesting this upcoming week.  The Comets have a back-to-back against two
teams that are below them in the possession standings – but both are teams the
Comets have a losing record against this year (n = 1).  They will face Rockford, the much tougher of
the two teams, when they are tired on Saturday. 
Then the Comets have a few days off before facing Rochester, a team they
have dominated this year, as they look to earn their first playoff berth. 

Extra Reading

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