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Utica Week in Review: January 20th
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Jeremy Davis
Jan 20, 2016, 19:00 ESTUpdated:
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Photo credit: Lindsay A. Mogle / Utica Comets
The losing finally came to a halt last week and not a moment too soon. After the Comets dropped their seventh straight game, they reversed their fortunes and finished the week on a positive note, with a two-game winning streak to bookend it.
There still wasn’t a whole lot of offense going around, but what last week lacked in goals, it made up for in roster moves; as the team received, reassigned and released a number of players.

The Games

January 13th, 2016 vs Toronto: 3 – 2 SO Loss
The Comets returned home after a three-game road trip and claimed their first point in seven tries in a 3-2 shootout loss to the Toronto Marlies at the Utica Memorial Auditorium on Wednesday night. Despite outshooting the Marlies 37-22, the Comets suffered their seventh consecutive loss.
Jon Landry (1-0-1) and Darren Archibald (1-0-1) provided the goals for the Comets while Richard Bachman was in net with a successful 25 saves. Hunter Shinkaruk (0-2-2) tied Jordan Subban for the team lead in assists with a two assist night. The special teams played well, as the power play unit scored and the penalty-killing unit enjoyed a perfect 5-for-5 night.
From the Utica Comets post-game report.
January 15th, 2016 at Syracuse: 3 – 1 Win
Led by Joe Cannata’s 26-save performance, the Utica Comets beat the Syracuse Crunch 3-1 Friday night at the Onondaga County War Memorial at the OnCenter. With the win, the Comets snapped a seven game losing streak and take home a commanding lead in the quest for the Galaxy Cup, with a record of 4-1-0-0 against Syracuse.
Alex Friesen (0-2-2), and Brendan Gaunce (1-1-2) recorded multi-point nights, while Brandon Marino (1-0-1) scored his first career American Hockey League goal.
From the Utica Comets post-game report.
January 16th, 2016 vs Albany: 1 – 0 OT Win
The Utica Comets and Travis Green made history with each notching their 100th regular season win with a 1-0 overtime thriller over the Albany Devils on Saturday evening at the Utica Memorial Auditorium. The 100th win came in the franchise’s 191st game, and increases the team’s all-time record to 100-67-15-9.
The Comets solved the riddle that was the Albany Devils thanks in part to heavily outshooting them 44-14, including a 17-1 advantage in the first period. Carter Bancks (1-0-1) provided the lone goal for the Comets 3:05 into overtime, while Richard Bachman earned his first shutout as a Comet with 14 saves.
From the Utica Comets post-game report.

The Lineups

Roster Information:
There’s been a lot happening with the Utica roster of late. This is to be expected – they have to deal not only with their own injuries but the Canucks as well. Plus, not only do they have players moving up the NHL and down to the ECHL, but they are also frequently signing players to, and releasing them from, tryout contracts.
Alex Biega and Linden Vey are the remaining Comets mainstays up in the big leagues and it was revealed yesterday that the Canucks intend to keep Biega up there for the remainder of the season– maybe even next year as well. Linden Vey has been playing well too, but with roster limitations he’s probably just a Brandon Sutter return away from heading back to Utica.
Taylor Fedun took a twirl with the Canucks last week, earning an assist in the one game he played (bringing him to an impressive seven points in 12 career NHL games) and was back in Utica before the week was through. The return of Luca Sbisa to the NHL lineup spelled the end of Danny Syvret’s AHL tryout.
Ashton Sautner was apparently a healthy scratch twice last week. This is a little odd, especially when David Shields replaced him in the lineup on Saturday, as Shields had been scratched in six consecutive games prior to that. We’ll keep an eye out to see if he’s had any nagging injuries that may be contributing to his scratches.
Curtis Valk played just one game with the Comets last week, before being shipped back to Kalamazoo (where he immediately scored in his first game back). Valk played well in his second career AHL game. He did occasionally look outmatched physically, but his skill was readily apparent even in the simplest plays. He’s still just a few weeks into his return from injury, and may well be back with the Comets later on.
Chris Higgins arrived in Utica on Monday, and will suit up this weekend for his first American League game in 10 years. I gotta figure that he’ll be on the right side rather than his natural left; the Comets are weaker on right now and the top six left wing spots are occupied by top prospects Hunter Shinkaruk and Brendan Gaunce. Seeing Higgins in a Comets uniform this weekend will be interesting, to say the least.
Mike Zalewski played a couple of games as the first line centre last week. His improved play this season has clearly drawn the attention of Canucks management, who signed him to an NHL contract yesterday. Meanwhile the Comets upgraded Jon Landry from a tryouy contract to an AHL deal.
Injury Updates:
Injuries are the same as they were last week. Blair Jones, Ronalds Kenins and Alex Grenier sat out the entire week with varying injuries, though Grenier was skating with the team by the end of it, albeit in a non-contact jersey. With a week off between games, he could be ready to go by the time the Comets hit the ice again.
Travis Ehrhardt was also ill for the Saturday game, but figures to be fine for the upcoming weekend.

The Stats

#
Player
GP
G
A
P
+/-
Sh
PIM
2
T. Ehrhardt †
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
3
A. Biega *
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
5
D. Shields
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
6
A. Sautner
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
7
J. Subban
3
0
0
0
0
9
2
8
A. Friesen
3
0
3
3
-1
12
2
9
H. Shinkaruk
3
0
3
3
0
6
2
10
B. Gaunce
3
1
1
2
-1
9
2
11
J. Negrin
3
0
0
0
-1
3
2
12
J. Kurtz
2
0
0
0
0
1
0
14
M. Zalewski
3
1
0
1
-1
7
0
15
R. Kenins †
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
16
J. LaBate
3
0
0
0
0
4
5
18
L. Vey *
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
20
J. Landry
3
1
0
1
0
12
6
22
B. Jones †
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
23
M. Pereira
3
0
0
0
0
7
2
24
C. Cassels
3
0
0
0
0
5
0
25
D. Archibald
3
1
0
1
-1
4
6
27
T. Fedun
2
0
1
1
-1
7
2
28
A. Grenier †
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
34
C. Bancks
3
1
1
2
0
4
0
36
W. Hamilton
3
0
0
0
-1
8
2
37
A. Pedan
3
0
1
1
0
7
0
55
D. Syvret
1
0
0
0
0
1
2
† Missed games due to injury/illness; * Missed games due to NHL promotion.
#
Goalie
GS
Record
GA
SA
Sv%
GAA
32
R. Bachman
2
1-0-1
2
35
.943
1.07
35
J. Cannata
1
1-0-0
1
27
.963
1.00
Prospects:
Hunter Shinkaruk piled up three assists last week. None of them were overly impressive, but he has been finding teammates who are in good positions to score. That’s why he’s the Comets leading point-getter after all.
Alex Friesen has three assists as well, while Brendan Gaunce scored a goal and an assist (more on that below). Jordan Subban was held off the scoresheet all week, though not for lack of trying; the undersized defender put 12 shots on net in three games, tied with Friesen for the team lead.
Cole Cassels had no points last week, so I guess that two assist performance in the previous week didn’t kick start anything, but he’s still looking far better than he did earlier in the season.
Team Level:
The Comets outshot their opponents 113-63 over the course of last week, culminating in Saturday’s game in which they outshot Albany 44-14. They poured 40 shots on the Devils in regulation alone, and it took them an additional four shot in overtime to finally get one past goaltender Scott Wedgewood, who played out of his mind.
The Comets were an abysmal 1-for-15 with the man advantage, which doesn’t help their overall power play conversion percentage, which has slipped to 14.0 percent, 23rd in the AHL. On the flip side, they were perfect on the penalty kill, killing off all 13 power plays they faced. Their penalty kill percentage is up to 85 percent, which is eighth in the league.

Player of the Week

Brendan Gaunce is the Player of the Week this time. He had a goal and an assist (decent numbers for another offensively challenged week for the Comets), and played well all around, putting nine shots on net.
His goal was a thing a beauty. The converted winger, who was once hampered by foot speed, demonstrated excellent separation speed on this breakaway goal.
Gaunce is second on the team in points with 20 (10 goals, 10 assists) in 28. The eTOI pegs his ice time at around 23 and a half minutes per game. That’s probably a little high, but not by a lot. Gaunce is an all-situations player that Travis Green counts on consistently, and it’s likely true that he leads all forwards in average ice time.
Personally, I think Gaunce would be an ideal candidate to come up and step in for Brandon Prust, since Prust is doing little more than complaining these days. Shinkaruk is obviously the more successful of the two offensively, but I think he can be left to percolate in the AHL until the Canucks deal Vrbata (at the trade deadline, please?).

Looking Ahead

The Comets play just twice this week, with a week between their last game and their next. On both Saturday and Sunday, the Comets will be in Toronto taking on the league-leading Marlies. Despite the team’s imposing — record, games against the Marlies have been close, hard-fought battles this season. Three of the four head-to-head matches have gone to extra time (with Utica winning once in overtime and Toronto taking two games in shoot-outs), while the remaining game was a 2-0 Marlies victory, which was another one-goal game until Toronto potted an empty netter with 11 seconds remaining.
Both games start at noon Pacific time.

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