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Utica Week in Review: April 11th – 17th
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Jeremy Davis
Apr 20, 2016, 19:19 EDTUpdated:
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Photo courtesy: Sarah Hobday
The Comets finished off their 2015-16 regular season last weekend. Heading into the final three games of the campaign, the Comets needed to win more games than either the Bridgeport Sound Tigers or the Portland Pirates in order to move up to seventh in the Eastern Conference and avoid the Toronto Marlies in the first round of the AHL playoffs.
To see how that turned out, as well as which Canucks prospects lit it up in their return from the NHL, you’ll have to read on.

The Games

Friday, April 15th vs Syracuse: 3 – 1 Win
Utica Comets official post-game recap.
Having already secured a playoff spot, and in turn eliminating the Crunch from playoff contention, the Comets didn’t absolutely need to beat Syracuse this weekend, but they did anyways, just for good measure. Anyway, player positioning was on the line and two points goes a long way on the road to not facing the Marlies.
All three goals from Friday’s game came in the final thirteen minutes of the game, and all three came on special teams. The Crunch scored just nine seconds into the game and the Comets let Syracuse think that was all they needed for the next 47 minutes of play time. Third period power play goals from Ronalds Kenins and Joe LaBate forced the lead to change hands, while Andrey Pedan put the game away with a short handed empty net goal with 1:18 remaining.
Carl Neill didn’t play this game.
Saturday, April 16th at Syracuse: 4 – 3 Overtime Win
Utica Comets official post-game recap.
The Comets won their final road game of the season, knocking off the Crunch in overtime and securing the Galaxy Cup, the award given to the winner of the season series between the Crunch and the Comets. It’s the third straight year that Utica has won the award – in other words, they’ve won it in every year they existed.
The Crunch never led this game, while the Comets held the lead on three separate occasions. Mike Zalewski scored twice in regulation, while Alex Friesen scored the Comets’ league leading 17th short handed goal. Friesen’s short handed breakaway marker was particular incredible because the Comets were killing a 5-on-3 at the time – to put that in perspective, consider this: the last 3-on-5 goal scored in the NHL was by Mike Richards in the 2008-09 season.
Brendan Gaunce, the Canucks’ best AHL prospect, scored 33 seconds into overtime to finish the Crunch off.
Carl Neill didn’t play this game either.
Sunday, April 17th vs Binghamton: 4 – 2 Loss
Utica Comets official post-game recap.
After winning on Friday and Saturday, a win on Sunday for the Comets would guarantee that they wouldn’t have to face the Toronto Marlies in the opening round of the Calder Cup playoffs. Unfortunately, they couldn’t pull it off, but it end up being moot – the Bridgeport Sound Tigers lost their final game later that day and as punishment will be seeing the Marlies in round one, while the Comets will instead face the formidable (but less outright scary) Albany Devils.
The Comets got goals from Brandon Marino and Brendan Gaunce – Gaunce’s was particular succulent, as we’ll see later. They carried a lead into the third period, but let it slip away from them. This is only the second time in franchise history that the Comets lost in regulation after leading a game after two periods, with the first instance occurring just a couple months ago. That said, their record of 77-2-4-0 when leading after 40 is still pretty solid.
Carl Neill still didn’t play. I thought this might be his best shot at a pro debut, but I’m guessing that Travis Green was more worried about getting two points and avoiding the Marlies, which was moot anyways.. oh well.

Roster Report

The Lines:



Roster Update:
The Comets added winger Tyler Currier on a PTO. Currier got into Sunday’s game against the Senators, which was only his second ever AHL appearance. The Comets also released defenceman William Wrenn, who played in two games for the Comets despite being on a PTO for four weeks.
While the Comets received Gaunce, Pedan, Kenins, and Zalewski back from the Comets, they will not be getting Chris Higgins back, who elected to stay in Vancouver rather than reporting back to Utica. In conjunction with Prust’s injury, this means that the Comets’ won’t get to utilize any of the veteran contracts the Canucks buried this year.
Thatcher Demko was signed to an Entry Level Contract earlier today. However, he, like Troy Stecher, will finish the school year rather than join Utica on a Professional Tryout.
Injury Report:
The Comets looked as though they were going to get nearly to full health at the end of the season, with Mike Zalewski, Darren Archibald, Wacey Hamilton and John Negrin returning in recent weeks. Unfortunately, both Archibald and Hamilton were re-injured and are back on the shelf, where they have been joined by Alex Friesen and PTO forwards Michael Pereira and Milos Bubela.
Brandon Prust is still done for the season, obviously.

The Stats

Skaters:
#
Player
GP
G
A
P
Sh
PIM
10
B. Gaunce
3
2
3
5
15
0
14
M. Zalewski
3
2
1
3
7
2
15
R. Kenins
3
1
1
2
5
4
27
T. Fedun
3
0
2
2
8
2
34
C. Bancks
3
0
2
2
6
2
13
B. Marino
3
1
0
1
3
2
16
J. LaBate
3
1
0
1
7
4
37
A. Pedan
3
1
0
1
6
4
8
†
A. Friesen
2
1
0
1
4
12
28
A. Grenier
3
0
1
1
5
2
17
T. Hensick
3
0
1
1
5
0
38
C. Valk
3
0
1
1
6
0
7
J. Subban
3
0
1
1
5
2
18
K. Jones
3
0
0
0
6
0
24
C. Cassels
3
0
0
0
2
0
6
A. Sautner
2
0
0
0
1
0
20
J. Landry
2
0
0
0
2
2
5
D. Shields
2
0
0
0
0
2
11
J. Negrin
2
0
0
0
2
0
2
T. Ehrhardt
1
0
0
0
0
2
12
T. Currier
1
0
0
0
3
0
36
†
W. Hamilton
0
0
0
0
0
0
23
†
M. Pereira
0
0
0
0
0
0
25
†
D. Archibald
0
0
0
0
0
0
39
†
M. Bubela
0
0
0
0
0
0
† Missed game(s) due to injury/illness; * Missed game(s) due to NHL call up.
Goalies:
#
Goalie
GS
Record
GA
SA
Sv%
GAA
32
R. Bachman
1
1-0-0
3
35
0.914
2.97
35
J. Cannata
2
1-1-0
4
47
0.915
2.01
For quite a while, I’ve been harping on the fact that Joe Cannata has been outplaying Richard Bachman for quite some time. In spite of this, they’ve been on a regular single game rotation far a large chunk of the season – basically as long as both Ryan Miller and Jacob Markstrom have been healthy in Vancouver.
Well with the playoffs starting this weekend, it’ll be interesting to see what Travis Green does with his starting goalies.
Prospects:
  • Brendan Gaunce demonstrated why he spent the last six weeks in the NHL by racking up five points in the final three games of the season, including two goals. He spent most of the weekend on a line with Curtis Valk and Mike Zalewski, which is probably the Comets’ most dangerous unit at this point – the trio were on the ice for three of the Comets four 5-on-5 goals last weekend.
  • Mike Zalewski also impressed in his return from Vancouver, scoring twice and adding an assist, although all three points were accrued in Saturday’s game.
  • Continuing the trend of returning players putting up points, Ronalds Kenins had a pair – a goal and an assist.
  • Joe LaBate scored once last weekend, bringing his totals to a very respectable 10 goals and 10 assists for 20 points in 66 games – not bad for a rookie season. LaBate was easily the most successful rookie forward on the team, with his only competition in that regard (Cole Cassels and Curtis Valk) combining for 13 points on the year, although he does having the advantage of being a couple of years older, having come out of the NCAA.
  • Alex Friesen also scored a goal last week, although the Comets’ long time second line centre appears to be moving down a rung with the additions of T.J. Hensick and Curtis Valk.
  • Andrey Pedan scored one goal last weekend in his return from the NHL. I’d like to say that spending all that time on an NHL forward line helped him out there, but it was into an empty net, so alas it seems like that forward ice time was still a ridiculous idea.
  • Jordan Subban had one assist during the three-in-three set, and it was a second assist on a power play. Subban has slowed down considerably over the past couple of months after piling up points in December, January, and February. Brendan Gaunce passed him in points on the weekend, but Subban’s 36 points still puts him at fifth best on the team, and easily the best rookie.
  • Curtis Valk also had one assist last week, bringing his totals to two goals, four assists and six points in 12 games in his first real taste of AHL action. Those six points were just one fewer than the seven that Cole Cassels amassed in 67 games this season.
  • Speaking of Cole Cassels, he had no points in his final seven games. He had just one point in his last 18 games, two in his last 27, three in his last 38… It never looks good. At no point in this entire season did Cole Cassels ever get on any sort of roll. After scoring 81 points in his final junior season, this is a bit hard to believe. Obviously the abdominal injury he sustained held him back early on, but it should have healed up by now and his play should have improved – if it hasn’t, it’s a reasonable question to ask if it ever will.
  • Ashton Sautner also had no points while playing in two games last week. He didn’t have a particular productive year (though with four goals and 11 points in 50 games, he still outscored Cassels in fewer games), but he did log some pretty decent minutes. Sautner has spent a lot of the latter half of the season with either Andrey Pedan or Taylor Fedun, two the Comets’ stronger defencemen. He’s also been killing penalties for some time now.
The Team:
The Comets outshot their opponents over the course of the weekend, as they usually do. They took 98 shots on net compared to allowing 83, for a shot share of 54.1 per cent. They controlled 52.9 per cent of shots on net in periods that began with the score tied and 55.1 per cent of shots on net in periods that began in score-close situations (tied or within one goal heading into first or second periods, and tied heading into third or overtime periods). While the AHL doesn’t release shot attempt data, we can infer from stats like these that the Comets are a strong puck possession team, and have been all year long.
The Comets started the weekend off with a solid power play effort, going 2-for-4 on Friday, but they followed that up with an 0-for-6 record over the final two games. Their power play finished the season in the bottom third of the league, converting on 53 out of 342 power play opportunities, for a rate of 15.1 per cent, 23rd in the AHL. Interestingly, Utica’s 342 power play opportunities was the highest in the entire league.
Their penalty kill was much better, as per usual, killing off all 12 opponent opportunities over the course of the weekend. They finished the season with the league’s fourth best penalty kill, surviving 270 of 314 opponent power plays for a kill rate of 86.0 per cent. Their penalty killing at home finished the year as the league’s best, killing 90.0 of short handed situations in the AUD.
Leaders:
Alex Grenier finishes the season as the Comets leader in points (48) and primary points (33). Brendan Gaunce scored the most goals (17). Jordan Subban led all defencemen in points (36) as well as all rookies. Brendan Gaunce had the team’s highest points per game (0.83). Darren Archibald led the team in penalty minutes (96), though Andrey Pedan had him beat in penalty minutes per game (1.93).
Here’s the final leaderboard of the regular season.

Player of the Week

Fresh off his first lengthy NHL stint, Brendan Gaunce returned to the AHL and played like a guy who’d already conquered that league. Gaunce had five points in the three weekend games, including a pair of goals.
It’s not just his finishing ability that’s impressive though, it’s his play away from pucks as well as his ability to hunt them down. Check out this goal from Sunday’s game in which he strips the puck from a poor Binghamton defenceman and then adds insult to injury by burying a quick shot.
Gaunce is far and away the best prospect that the Canucks have in Utica right now, and his future with the big club should be fairly certain going into next year. He’s proven that he can play both at centre and on the wing not only at the AHL level, but as the NHL level as well, and that’s a huge boon for him, considering how much Willie Desjardins loves players that can move around the lineup.

Looking Ahead

The Comets regular season is completely finished, and their next stop will be Albany, New York to take on the Albany Devils, affiliate on the New Jersey Devils, in a best-of-five series that kicks off on Friday. I’ll have a full preview of the first round and a detailed head-to-head breakdown before then.
Until then, here are the final standings for the 2015-16 AHL season.

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