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Utica Week in Review: February 11th
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Jeremy Davis
Feb 11, 2016, 13:00 ESTUpdated:
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Photo credit: St. John’s IceCaps (Facebook)
The Comets went on a road trip last weekend. Road trips can be a ton of fun, a great bonding experience full of joy, comradery, and memories that can last a life time. They can also be to Newfoundland. The Comets went to Newfoundland.
They did still manage to find joy however, winning both games on the rock, leaving them on a nifty four game winning streak. They even got a little board in the final game and decided to make things interested, leading to a gorgeous comeback goal and a Canucks prospect entering the AHL record books.

The Games

February 5th at St. John’s: 5 – 2 Win
The Utica Comets struck early and often, and then never looked back en route to a 5-2 win against the St. John’s IceCaps Friday night at the Mile One Centre. The Comets first ever game could not have gotten off to a better start as the team struck three times in their first four shots during the first 5:16 of play to jump out to a quick 3-0 lead.
Wacey Hamilton (2-1-3), Carter Bancks (1-2-3), John Negrin (0-2-2) each recorded multi-point nights. Fresh off of his American Hockey League All-Star Challenge appearance, Hunter Shinkaruk (1-0-1) scored his team-leading 18th goal of the season. Richard Bachman made 40 saves for his ninth win of the season.
From the Utica Comets post-game report.
February 6th at St. John’s: 3 – 2 Overtime Win
For over 58 minutes the Utica Comets and St. John’s IceCaps engaged in a goaltender’s duel at the Mile One Centre. After that, Brendan Gaunce exploded for two goals to tie, and then win, the game by the score of 3-2 for the Comets in overtime. Gaunce’s overtime tally came just five seconds into the period which tied an American Hockey League record for fastest goal at the start of overtime.
Jon Landry (1-0-1), and Brendan Gaunce (2-0-2) accounted for all the Comets scoring in this one. Landrys goal was his fifth point in the last four games. Michael Zalewski (0-1-1) kept his torrid pace up with an assist. He has now collected seven points (4-3-7) in four games since returning from a two-game stint with the Vancouver Canucks.
From the Utica Comets post-game report.

Roster Report

Roster Information:
With both the NHL and AHL clubs returning to full health (short lived though it would be), the Comets roster was bulging last weekend – both games involved four healthy scratches, and that’s not even including Yannick Weber and Brandon Prust, who were both assigned to the Comets but did not join the team in Newfoundland.
John Kurtz and David Shields were scratched for both games, which is a common occurrence. They are the respective leaders in healthy scratches on forward and defence. Ashton Sautner (a rookie) and Brandon Marino (a PTO) were also scratched for Friday’s game, which isn’t all that surprising either.
This is unusual though: on Saturday, Andrey Pedan and Ronalds Kenins were scratches, ostensibly despite being of full health. [] I’ve reached out to a couple of Comets insiders, and I’ve found no answer as to why this would be the case. Best guess is that Travis Green was interested in testing out different line combinations and giving different guys looks before the arrivals of Weber and Prust. Ronalds Kenins would be easier to explain – the young winger has had a tough season, marred by injury. Not wanting to push him too much on back-to-back games would be a viable excuse.
The Pedan scratch is a head scratcher though. Of all the Comets defencemen, he would be considered the best NHL prospect. It’s possible that he was a little banged up and was granted a rest on the second half of a back-to-back. If more information is revealed, I’ll be sure to provide an update.
Injury Update:
Blair Jones is still the one remaining injured Comet, as far as I can tell. The scratches of Pedan and Kenins were odd, but do indeed seem to be of the healthy variety – both players were back in for Tuesday’s game.

The Stats

#
Player
GP
G
A
P
+/-
Sh
PIM
2
T. Ehrhardt
2
0
1
1
0
2
2
5
D. Shields
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
6
A. Sautner
1
0
0
0
0
2
2
7
J. Subban
2
0
1
1
0
7
2
8
A. Friesen
2
0
0
0
-1
2
0
9
H. Shinkaruk
2
1
1
2
0
2
0
10
B. Gaunce
2
2
0
2
0
6
0
11
J. Negrin
2
0
2
2
-2
2
0
12
J. Kurtz
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
13
B. Marino
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
14
M. Zalewski
2
0
2
2
0
5
2
15
R. Kenins
1
0
0
0
0
2
0
16
J. LaBate
2
1
0
1
0
2
7
18
*
L. Vey
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
20
J. Landry
2
1
1
2
0
4
4
21
C. Higgins
2
0
1
1
0
5
2
22
†
B. Jones
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
24
C. Cassels
2
0
0
0
0
0
2
25
D. Archibald
2
0
0
0
-1
1
5
27
T. Fedun
2
0
0
0
0
3
0
28
A. Grenier
2
0
1
1
0
5
4
34
C. Bancks
2
1
2
3
0
3
2
36
W. Hamilton
2
2
1
3
0
3
2
37
A. Pedan
1
0
0
0
0
4
2
† 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
2
42
.952
2.00
35
J. Cannata
1
1-0-0
2
34
.942
2.00
Prospects:
Brendan Gaunce led the offensive charge last weekend, and he did it in quick succession: on Saturday’s game, he scored a goal to tie the game with just a minute and a half remaining, before netting the overtime winner just five seconds into the extra frame, tying an AHL record.
Hunter Shinkaruk scored a goal last weekend, as he is wont to do.He also added an assist. He took just two shots on goals however. For a guy that scores so many goals, Shinkaruk’s shot rate is surprisingly low.
Mike Zalewski added two more assists to his point totals, ever expanding on his already impressive season. Hard to believe this is the same guy who scored three goals and 12 points last season. I’d be awfully surprised if he didn’t win the Comets Most Improved Player award at the end of the season, so I’m gonna go ahead and call that now.
Jordan Subban and Alex Grenier had a single assist each, while Andrey Pedan, Ashton Sautner, Alex Friesen, and Cole Cassels were held pointless. I suppose if Cassels ever does start putting up point by the end of the season, he’d have to give Zalewski a run for his money in the Most Improved Player department – it seems like nobody has more room to improve that Cole Cassels right now, at least in terms of results.
Chris Higgins isn’t really a prospect, but he did have an assist last weekend. Given how fast and furious Jim Benning is waiving veterans, I might need to add a new sub-header here called “Buried Contracts”.
Team Level:
In a departure from the norm, the Comets were outshot by a decent margin in St. John’s, given up 74 shots over the course of the two games, while taking 61 themselves. Some of this is likely due to score effects, as the Comets allowed 42 shots on Friday’s contest, a contest in which they went up 3-0 early and played the majority of the time with a sizable lead.
The Comets power play went 1-for-10 on the weekend, which isn’t a great way to improve their 26th ranked power play, currently converting at 14.4 per cent. Utica managed to kill 11 of 13 penalties, which is alright in itself – the fact that they allowed 13 man advantages is more worrisome. On Friday, the IceCaps had nine power plays, while the Comets were mostly rung up with obstruction penalties: hooking, tripping, interference, and so on.

Player of the Week

Brendan Gaunce played hero on Saturday. With the Comets’ then-three game winning streak on the line, and less than two minutes remaining in the game, Gaunce scored an absolutely ridiculous goal to tie up the game:
Evidently feeling that the game tying goal wasn’t impressive enough on its own, Gaunce waited all of five seconds in the extra frame to score this goal:
As it turned out, this tied an American League record for fastest goal into an overtime period.
At the conclusion of the weekend, Gaunce was tied for second on the team in both goals and points, having a slight advantage in primary points on Zalewski and Subban. It’s nice to see him light it up a little here, since he’s been a little dry later. Now it would just be nice to see Alex Grenier get going – he’s been stone cold this whole calendar year.

Looking Ahead

The Comets play three games this week, including one a couple of days ago against Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, which I’ll recap in next week’s edition.
Tomorrow, the Comets will host Binghamton Senators, who have recently stocked up on NHL prospects following the nine-player Dion Phaneuf deal between the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs. Ryan Rupert and Casey Bailey joined the Senators in advance of their last game, a 7-2 loss. Binghamton is currently riding a four game losing streak, being absolutely crushed to the tune of 23-5 in that stretch. This will be Utica’s third meeting with Binghamton this season, with each team taking a game. Both games have been high scoring affairs: a 7-5 Utica win, and more recently a 6-3 Utica los
The day after that, the Comets will head to Lehigh Valley to take on the Phantoms, Philadelphia’s affiliate. The Phantoms last game was the aforementioned 7-2 drubbing on Binghamton, though they themselves were beaten handily in their two games before that. The Comets and Phantoms have met twice this season, and while each team has won once, Utica’s 7-1 victory was quite a bit more impressive than Lehigh Valley’s 3-1 win.
The two games will start at 4:00pm and 4:05pm Pacific time respectively.

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