Well now, that’s more like it. After a weekend where the Comets were torn apart in consecutive games by the AHL’s most dominant team, Utica played a couple of teams that were more within their competitive range. The results were a lot more favourable this time – the Comets won both games, and got a good number of points from Canucks prospects, especially the newly signed Mike Zalewski, who was dominant all weekend.

The Games

January 29th, 2016 at Albany: 4 – 3 Overtime Win

Propelled by Michael Zalewski’s two-goal performance in his first game back in the line-up, the Utica Comets defeated the Albany Devils 4-3 in overtime at the Times Union Center on Friday night. Zalewski, fresh off of his first call-up to the Vancouver Canucks, scored the Comets first goal and then the game-winning overtime goal just 46 seconds into the extra frame.
Jordan Subban (1-1-2), and Chris Higgins (0-2-2) joined Zalewski (0-2-2) as multi-point scorers. Andrey Pedan (1-0-1) also scored for the Comets. Richard Bachman turned aside 22 of the Devils shots en route to his eighth win of the season.

From the Utica Comets post-game release.

Ashton Sautner was a scratch for the second consecutive game on Friday.

January 30th, 2016 vs Rochestr: 4 – 2 Win

Down 2-0 early at the Utica Memorial Auditorium, Michael Zalewski and the Utica Comets stormed back for a 4-2 win vs the Rochester Americans on Saturday night. For the second consecutive night Zalewski netted two goals, including the game-winning goal.
Hunter Shinkaruk (1-0-1), Mike Zalewski (2-1-3) and Jon Landry (1-2-3) scored goals for the Comets and Joe Cannata stopped 20 saves en route to the win.

From the Utica Comets post-game release.

Cole Cassels took a seat in Saturday’s game. It was a good run for the Comets rookie, who hadn’t been scratched since December 11th, 19 games previous. Still, the offence has yet to arrive, so it’s likely that the periodic scratches will continue as he engages in off ice workouts and conditioning.

Roster Report

Roster Information:

The biggest news heading into this weekend is that Brandon Prust was waived and will report to the Comets. This will force some interesting decision making from head coach Travis Green, as Prust is yet another veteran coming on to the roster with nobody going in the other direction. I touched on what Prust coming to Utica means for the Comets here.

Injury Updates:

Blair Jones remains the lone injured Comet. He’s yet to play a game in 2016, with December 31st being his last appearance. Travis Ehrhardt has also missed several games recently with some sort of illness. He missed three games straight, then played in once (he was minus-5 that game) and has since missed two more.

The Stats

#		Player	GP	G	A	P	+/-	Sh	PIM
2	†	T. Ehrhardt	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5		D. Shields	2	0	0	0	0	1	0
6		A. Sautner	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
7		J. Subban	2	1	1	2	0	3	0
8		A. Friesen	2	0	0	0	0	3	2
9		H. Shinkaruk	2	1	0	1	0	2	0
10		B. Gaunce	2	0	1	1	-1	5	0
11		J. Negrin	1	0	0	0	-1	1	0
12		J. Kurtz	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
13		B. Marino	2	0	0	0	-2	3	0
14		M. Zalewski	2	4	1	5	0	8	2
15		R. Kenins	2	0	1	1	-1	1	0
16		J. LaBate	2	0	0	0	0	1	2
18	*	L. Vey	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
20		J. Landry	2	1	3	4	-1	4	0
21		C. Higgins	2	0	2	2	0	1	0
22	†	B. Jones	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
24		C. Cassels	1	0	0	0	0	1	0
25		D. Archibald	1	0	0	0	0	3	4
27		T. Fedun	2	0	1	1	0	5	2
28		A. Grenier	2	0	0	0	0	5	0
34		C. Bancks	2	0	0	0	-1	3	2
36		W. Hamilton	2	0	0	0	-1	2	0
37		A. Pedan	2	1	0	1	0	9	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	3	25	.880	2.99
35	J. Cannata	1	1-0-0	2	22	.909	2.00

Prospects:

Mike Zalewski stole the show last weekend, scoring four times in the two games the Comets played. That’s more goals than he scored all of last season. The New Hartford native is up to 12 on the season, which is good for second on the team behind Hunter Shinkaruk. Not bad for a guy who wouldn’t have been considered a prospect a couple of weeks ago.

Shinkaruk also scored a goal on the weekend, his 17th of the season. There’s been a lot of sputtering offence from the top six lately, and while Shinkaruk is slowly adding to his totals, Alex Grenier has stalled completely, with no points in his last nine games. Brendan Gaunce hasn’t been doing much better, with just one goal in his last 15 games, though he’s added five assists in that period.

The defensive prospects are doing much better, as Andrey Pedan and Jordan Subban each had a goal on the weekend, with Subban adding an assist. Subban continues to hold on to his spot as second place in points on the the team, though Zalewski is coming on fast.

Cole Cassels and Ashton Sautner each had no points on the weekend, and in each was a healthy scratch once. Joe LaBate was also pointless in the two games he played.

Team Level:

The Comets outshot their opponents 61-47 last week. Out-possessing their opponents has been a pretty common occurrence this season, and last weekend their goaltending was good enough to allow the Comets to be victorious in back to back games.

The Comets went 2-for-6 on the power play last weekend and killed six of seven penalties. Utica’s man advantage is still at a rather pathetic 14.9 per cent conversion rate on the season, which is 23rd in the AHL. Their penalty is marginally better, killing off 84.1 per cent of penalties (12th in the league), given them a special teams rating of 99.0.

Player of the Week

As if there were even a question. Mike Zalewski, fresh off of his first NHL call up, killed it last weekend, putting up four goals and adding an assist in just the two games played. With those five points, Zalewski has shot up the Comets point leaderboard, passing Alex Grenier and tying Brendan Gaunce for third in points.

Here he is winning last Friday’s game in overtime with a steal and a beautiful finish, like it’s no big deal:

Looking Ahead

The AHL, like the NHL, is now in its all-star break. The all-star game will take place on Monday, February 1st, the day after the NHL’s.

The Comets will get back at it on Friday as they head to St. John’s, Newfoundland to take on John Scott’s Ice Caps, Montréal’s affiliate. Unfortunately the NHL All-Star won’t be there as his wife, pregnant with twins, is scheduled to be induced on Friday.

As for the rest of the Ice Caps, they’re 19-17-6-3 this season, tied for fourth in the North Division and tenth in the Eastern Conference. They’re scoring goals at about the same rate as the Comets (2.87 goals per game), though they’re allowing far more (3.29 goals against per game). The Ice Caps’ special teams are exceedingly average, with both their power play and penalty kill ranking 15th in the AHL out of 30 teams.

The Comets and Ice Caps have faced off twice already this season, both times in Utica, with the Ice Caps taking both games by a single goal.

Both games this weekend are set to go at 7:30 Newfoundland time, which is actually 3:00pm Pacific, because Newfoundland time is crazy.

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