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Utica Week in Review: January 13th
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Jeremy Davis
Jan 13, 2016, 19:00 ESTUpdated:
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Photo Credit: Lindsay A. Mogle / Utica Comets
The Comets are starting to approach full health but they just can’t stop the bleeding. After a very disappointing three-in-three weekend in which they lost every game by multiple goals, the losing streak has hit six games – and it’s starting to look worse instead of better.
On the bright side, Hunter Shinkaruk was announced as this season’s Utica representative at the AHL all-star, and he scored a pair of goals to celebrate. That’s about it for bright sides, after that it’s pretty much just awful. Let’s take a closer look at last week’s games and see if any Canucks prospects managed to avoid the awfulness.

The Games

January 8th, 2016 at Binghamton: 6 – 3 Loss
The Utica Comets lost by the score of 6-3 to the Binghamton Senators on Friday night at the Floyd L. Maines Veterans Memorial Arena to run their losing streak to four games. The road loss was their first such loss in regulation since Nov. 14, a span of nine games.
Travis Ehrhardt (1-0-1), Wacey Hamilton (1-0-1), and John Kurtz (1-0-1) found the back of the net for the boys in blue, while the power play unit stumbled to an 0-for-5 night. Joe Cannata recorded his sixth loss of the season, after making __ saves in relief of Richard Bachman.
From the Utica Comets post-game report.
January 9th, 2016 at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton: 4 – 2 Loss
The Utica Comets surrendered two power-play goals to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins en route to a 4-2 loss Saturday evening at the Mohegan Sun Arena. The loss sends the Comets to their fifth consecutive loss.
Defensemen Jon Landry (0-2-2) and Jordan Subban (0-2-2) enjoyed multi-point nights. Alex Friesen (1-0-1) and Hunter Shinkaruk (1-0-1) found the back of the net for the Comets, while Joe Cannata recorded his second loss in as many nights with a 24-save performance.
From the Utica Comets post-game report.
The Comets played a couple of familiar faces in this game, namely Adam Clendening and former Canucks cornerstone, Tom Sestito. Clendening looked solid, while Sestito was at his most noticeable when he took a uncoincidental roughing penalty in the second period. The Comets didn’t technically score on that power play, but after it became a 5-on-3 in their favor, Shinkaruk tipped home a goal one second after Sestito exited the box, so that’s neat.
January 10th, 2016 at Hershey: 6 – 3 Loss
The Utica Comets surrendered a late short-handed goal to the Hershey Bears to break a 3-3 tie, before ultimately losing 6-3 at the Giant Center on Sunday afternoon. The loss sends the Comets to their sixth straight defeat after gaining a point in 14 of 16 games.
Cole Cassels (0-2-2) and Joseph LaBate (1-1-2) recorded multi-point nights. Hunter Shinkaruk (1-0-1) scored his team-leading 15th goal of the season, and newcomer Michael Pereira (1-0-1) scored his first as a Comet. Joe Cannata made 33 saves in the loss.
The Comets surrendered the first goal for the seventh time in their last eight games just 3:22 into the game.
From the Utica Comets post-game report.
Ryan Stanton was sighted in this game. He’s a pretty big deal in the AHL I guess. Madison Bowey was also around for the Hershey Bears, and he looked real good.

The Lineups

Roster information:
The Comets absolutely love PTOs. Last week they signed forward Michael Pereira, who went on to score a goal against the Hershey Bears on Sunday. This week they’ve also signed forward Brandon Marino to a PTO. Marino was playing in the ECHL for the Brampton Beast, a team that the Kalamazoo Wings just played three times in three nights. My absolute favourite part about Brandon Marino is who he played for last season: Szekeshfehervar Alba Volan Hockey Club in Austria.
Huge news: The Comets have also called up Curtis Valk, just recently came back from a knee injury that kept him out for well over a year. In five games since his return, Valk has eight points. He was last season’s October Player of the Month in the ECHL, tallied 30 points in 31 games, and was an ECHL all-star. He probably should’ve played more with the Comets (he played one game), if it weren’t for that whole debilitating, season-ending injury thing.
I’m just so excited to watch him play in the AHL. I have an inexplicable and irrational hockey-crush on Curtis Valk and I have no idea why. I’ve literally never seen anything of him other than highlights, and I have only stats and articles to go on. Ryan Biech isn’t on board, but Jeffler totally knows what I’m talking about.
Ashton Sautner was a scratch on Saturday (appears to be a healthy scratch). Jon Landry and Danny Syvret were also scratches at points as the Comets are up to eight healthy defencemen. David Shields has been scratched a whole lot.
Joe Cannata made consecutive starts for the first time since November 1st and 4th, as he and Bachman have alternated through most of the season, as well as spending a few weeks backing up in the NHL. He also came in early on Friday to replace Bachman, who had let in a good goal, an iffy goal, and a stinker in the first 15 minutes of that game. Given that Cannata was tagged for six goals on Sunday, the Comets coaches may go back to Bachman anyways.
Injury updates:
Ronalds Kenins has gone down with an upper body injury. It’s been a tough year for the forward once known as the Latvian Locomotive, as he has lost all of the momentum built by an impressive rookie showing last season. In nine games in Utica, he has but a single assist, in addition to totaling zero points in six NHL games.
Blair Jones is out with an injury as well. Taylor Fedun returned this weekend from a hand injury and played in all three games.

The Stats

#
Player
GP
G
A
P
+/-
Sh
PIM
2
T. Ehrhardt
3
1
0
1
0
3
2
3
*
A. Biega
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
5
D. Shields
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
6
A. Sautner
2
0
0
0
0
1
0
7
J. Subban
3
0
2
2
-5
10
7
8
A. Friesen
3
1
0
1
-2
8
17
9
H. Shinkaruk
3
2
0
2
-3
9
0
10
B. Gaunce
3
0
0
0
-4
2
0
11
J. Negrin
3
0
1
1
-1
4
2
12
J. Kurtz
3
1
0
1
-1
1
5
14
M. Zalewski
3
0
1
1
-2
4
2
15
R. Kenins
1
0
0
0
0
4
0
16
J. LaBate
3
1
1
2
-1
6
0
18
*
L. Vey
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
20
J. Landry
2
0
3
3
-2
1
2
22
†
B. Jones
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
23
M. Pereira
2
1
0
1
-1
3
2
24
C. Cassels
3
0
2
2
0
0
2
25
D. Archibald
3
0
1
1
-2
8
2
27
T. Fedun
3
0
0
0
-2
8
0
28
A. Grenier
3
0
0
0
-2
4
6
34
C. Bancks
3
0
1
1
-1
4
2
36
W. Hamilton
3
1
0
1
-3
9
2
37
*
A. Pedan
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
55
D. Syvret
2
0
0
0
-3
3
2
†Missed games due to injury; *Missed games due to NHL promotion.
Prospects:
Hunter Shinkaruk had a fire in his belly this week, perhaps brought on by being announced to the AHL All-Star Classic. He had two goals this week.
Jordan Subban’s point streak came to an end Friday, topping out five games. He had two points on Saturday to make up for it, but was pointless on Sunday. With the two points this week, he passed Brendan Gaunce to tie with Alex Grenier for second on the team in scoring (with 19 points), trailing only Hunter Shinkaruk (who has 27 points). Another positive: it’s been 13 games since the last time Subban was a healthy scratch. Injuries forced Travis Green to play him more and he hasn’t disappointed offensively, tallying 11 points in those 13 games. Unfortunately he was also a team worst minus-5 last week, and his minus-7 for the season is worst on the team.
Alex Grenier and Brendan Gaunce both had quiet weeks, combining for six shots and zero points. As two-thirds of the Comets top line, they’re gonna need to get going if the Comets are going to bust this slump.
Cole Cassels had two assists on Sunday, his first multi-point game as a professional. Is everything starting to turn around for this young man? We’ll have to stay tuned to see if this little burst grows into something more. Travis Green did say earlier in the season that he didn’t expect Cassels to be right until after Christmas, and he does have three points in eight post-Christmas games. On Sunday he swapped with Brendan Gaunce and played as the top line centre, and he does indeed look more impactful than he did even a few weeks ago.
Team Level:
After six straight losses, the Comets have fallen to 16-15-3-2, and are currently outside a playoff spot. Their goal differential has fallen to +1 on the season (+106/-105), and their special teams numbers continue to tumble as well. Their power play is now at 14.6 per cent for the season, and their penalty kill, once among the league’s best, is down to 13th, killing at 83.8 per cent.
The Comets still managed to outshoot their opponents in two of the three losses last week (30-25 and 31-28), though they were badly outshot by Hershey (40-31). Score effects are a potential culprit, although the Comets have been routinely outshooting their competition through the season in both wins and losses. Often it was the case that they were the better team and just not getting the bounces. Lately, things just seem to be coming off the rails a bit.

Player of the Week

Hunter Shinkaruk gets the Player of the Week award this time, both for his pair of goals, and for being named an All-Star. I feel like I’ve been writing a lot about Shinkaruk lately, which is probably because he’s been so great. Here’s some stuff I recently said:
It’s been quite a season for Shinkaruk, drafted 24th overall in 2013. He’s come miles from the player he was in his rookie professional season in which he scored 16 goals and added 15 assists (for 31 points) in 74 regular season games. Gone is the player struggling to keep up with the pace of professional hockey after season ending surgery wiped on the majority of his final year of junior as well as his ability to train the following summer.
In his place is a dynamic scoring winger that does it all. He doesn’t wait for the puck to come to him, he creates opportunities for himself and others. He backchecks, he forechecks and he buries his chances. After coming into this season looking like he was teetering on the brink of irrelevancy, Shinkaruk has forced himself back into the hearts and minds of Canucks fans and management alike.
With 11 goals in his first 15 games this season (including two hat-tricks), Shinkaruk virtually demanded an NHL call up, and was granted one in late November, making his NHL debut against the Montreal Canadiens. It has been the only NHL game he’s played so far this season, but it won’t likely be the last.

Looking Ahead

The Comets play three more games this week, starting tonight at home to Toronto, followed by back-to-backs against Syracuse and Albany on Friday and Saturday.
Toronto is still the top team in the AHL, wih 60 points and a record of 29-7-2-0. The last time these teams played, the Comets lit up Jonathan Bernier and won 5-4 in overtime. Since then, the Marlies have won nine of 11 games, including their last five in a row.
Syracuse sits one point above Utica in the Eastern Conference with a record of 16-14-5-1. They recently added highly touted forward Jonathan Drouin because Jon Cooper doesn’t like nice things. Drouin had two goals in his first game down with the Syracuse, who have won their past two games. Utica has won three of the four games they’ve played against each other so far this season.
Albany is up near the top of the Eastern Conference with a record of 22-8-4-0. They’ve had Utica’s number this season, winning all three games in the head-to-head series so far, outscoring the Comets 13-4.
All three games go at 4:00 pm Pacific time.

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