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Utica Comets Deep Dive: Calder Cup, Round 3 – Grand Rapid Griffins
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Josh W
By Josh W
Jun 19, 2015, 11:00 EDTUpdated:
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Photo Courtesy: @Sarah_Hobday
Heading
into the third round of the Calder Cup the Comets were looking to face their
toughest opponents yet: The Grand Rapids Griffins (affiliates of the Detroit
Red Wings).  In this series preview we
had noted that while the Comets had the advantage in possession numbers, the
Griffins had top end forwards that were due to regress, better special teams
and the higher string of PDO so far. 
Similar to
the last two rounds this match up basically went as predicted.  The Comets were the better team at
even-strength but the Griffins were able to keep up with the Jonses thanks to
their special teams.  Jacob Markstrom
continued to stand strong as he ensured the Comets were able to win in a record
of only 6 games.
Read past
the jump to see what went down.

Possession

The Utica
Comets controlled possession throughout the series.  This was not necessarily true as the Comets
saw themselves majorly outplayed in game 5, but they made up for that
lack-luster effort in game 6.  Overall
the series advantage was heavily weighted towards the comets.
This
possession advantage easily translated to the scoring where the Comets were
able to out-score the Griffins in 4 of the 6 games.  By the end of the series the Comets had an
even-strength goal differential of +5 over the Griffins.
While
Special Teams did improve for the Comets, the Comets were still outscored in 2
of the 6 games with a differential of -2 by the end of the series.  The opportunities on the man-advantage were
21 to 24 in favour of the Griffins.  The
Comets were able to capitalize at a much more respectable 19.05% while the
penalty-kill did no favours for the Comets, ending the series at a 70.83%
efficiency.
Over the
series the Comets were able to generate an average of 29.33 to 27.50
shots (+11 @ 176 to 165).  Their PDO in
the series finally emerged above 98% finishing at a very high 101.86% thanks
largely to the efforts of Jacob Markstrom who posted a .933 in the series.

Goaltenders

Jacob
Markstrom continued to show why he is an elite AHL goaltender as he was much
the much better of the two goaltenders in the series.  He finished with a series save percentage of
.933 compared to Grand Rapids’ Tom McCollum’s .906.
In the 6
games Markstrom posted 4 Quality Starts, including a second playoff shutout in
the final game, a regular start, and one really bad start that resulted in
Markstrom being pulled.  In relief was
Joacim Eriksson who stopped 4 of 4 shots.
At the
other end of the rink was Tom McCollum who played through all 6 games.  In that time he posted 3 Quality Starts and 3
Really Bad Starts.

Players

Cal
O’Reilly and Sven Baertschi continued to lead the Comets offence in this
series.  Cal O’Reilly, who lead the playoffs in scoring heading into the third round with 16 assists and 0 goals, managed to lead the team in points in this round by scoring 6 more assists.
Sven
Baertschi was a force on his own scoring 4 goals and earning 1 assist while
Brendan Gaunce was quite impressive with 1 goal and 3 assists.  Cory Conachar finally saw his shooting
percentage return and was able to score, after putting 50 shots on net, and
left the series with 3 goals himself. 
Alex
Grenier, who had stood out quite noticeably in the first two rounds, was quiet
in this round with a mere 1 goal and 1 assist. 
Jake Virtanen also earned his first professional point with 1 assist.
Our KWings Insiderrr was at Game 1 of the series and had the following notes to share:
  • Virtanen must be happy to be in Utica as he was all smiles in warmups.
  • 35 seconds into the game with the faceoff after the first whistle
    O’Reilly passed to Jensen for the quick goal. After the goal Jensen
    seemed to play with a lot more confidence and was jumping up into plays
    more often.
  • Markstrom had some great saves early in the game with increased pressure from the Griffins trying to tie the game.
  • Grenier showed great speed all night – obvious that he has been working
    on his speed since the beginning of the season. One of the many parts
    of his game that have improved since September.
  • Jensen was the slowest skater on his line with Grenier and O’Reilly.
  • The line of Virtanen, Shinkaruk, and Zalewski was the slowest skating line and took shorter shifts.
  • Virtanen was very strong with the puck all night.
  • The PK line of Gaunce, Hamilton, Beiga, and Ehrhardt was very strong on
    the first PK of the game. This line kept the Griffins from getting any
    shots on net.
  • Grenier was playing point as the 4th forward on the 1st PP unit.
  • DeFazio’s goal was very soft having slowly trickled past the goalie over the goal line.
  • The 1st period was all Comets – they dominated the Griffins in every area.
  • The Griffins lone goal of the game was a PP goal scored quickly off a faceoff. Goal scored over Markstrom’s right shoulder.
  • During the Comets 2nd PP opportunity of the night Grenier threw a
    thunderous hit and then almost tipped in the puck for a goal. The
    Griffins goalie stopped the puck just in time.
  • Gaunce played very solid all night.
  • Zalewski had the least amount of ice time for the Comets. Virtanen’s ice time increased throughout the game.
  • Virtanen got leveled 6 minutes into the 2nd period – he just jumped
    right back up and into the play. Virtanen did not try to retaliate
    against the player that checked him.
  • Virtanen was getting a bit manhandled in the 2nd period. Virtanen played very smart all night and took no penalties.
  • The 2nd period was much more physical than the 1st. The Griffins took
    control in the 2nd period with their physicality by throwing more and
    more hard hits.
  • With 2 mins left the 2nd Virtanen
    got checked and took a stick to the mouth. Virtanen appeared to ask the
    Griffins player if he wanted to fight. The Griffins player shook his
    head “no” and skated away.
  • The Griffins goalie had a very strong 2nd period – made some great saves.
  • Markstrom looked strong as usual making great saves all night – especially strong with his glove side.
  • Friesen was a spark plug and plays bigger than he is. Friesen isn’t afraid to get in players faces.
  • Grenier threw 2 thunderous hits in a row in his second shift of the 3rd period. Loving his game tonight.
  • Virtanen completely leveled a Griffins player in front of their bench 7 minutes into the 3rd. His best hit of the night.
  • The Comets took back control of the game in the 3rd.
  • Overall a great game by the Comets. They were solid in every aspect of
    the game except the PP which has struggled all playoffs.
  • Virtanen was much stronger in the 1st and 3rd periods. He seemed to take it down a notch in the 2nd and played more reserved.
  • Archibald was seen on crutches in the arena.
On the Griffins end of the rink, the Comets managed to shut down their top three scorers who had been on fire through their first two rounds.  Teemu Pulkkinen was limited to 1 goal and 2 assists in these 6 games, Tyler Bertuzzi had similar results while Andy Miele was limited to 1 assist.

Conclusion

Much like
we had predicted, the Utica Comets were the better possession team in this
series and that translated into their even-strength scoring.  A portion of that was because of the Comets
having the better goaltender in Jacob Markstrom posting a .933 in the series,
to raise his playoff save percentage to a .931. 
Grand
Rapids did their best to try and keep up with the Comets, thanks to their
stronger special teams, kept the score closer than it should have been.  The good news that came out of this loss is that the Grand Rapids coach, Jeff Blashill, was hired to become the coach of the Detroit Red WIngs.
Utica would ultimately come up short in the Calder Cup final against the Manchester Monarchs, but we’ll have the breakdown of that series some time in the near future.

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