At 0-10-1-2, the Utica Comets must change into escape artists if they’re to avoid wasting their season.
That’s the first situation for these Comets. The second query is sort of direct as effectively. Are extra adjustments from the father or mother New Jersey Devils on the best way?
Going with out a win of their first 13 video games has put Utica’s season in peril earlier than they’ve even reached its quarter level. Now already 13 factors behind the Rochester People and the North Division playoff line, the Comets are falling shortly. A harmful piece of AHL historical past additionally hangs on the market. The Baltimore Skipjacks began their 1987-88 season with 18 consecutive losses, all in regulation. Again then, the AHL nonetheless had ties, in order that slide lasted three extra video games earlier than Baltimore lastly bagged its first win in its twenty second sport of the season.
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Not way more went effectively that season for the Skipjacks, who have been enjoying that season as an unbiased after their affiliation with the Pittsburgh Penguins had ended. They ended up going 13-58-9, have been outscored 434-268, and completed 52 factors out of a playoff spot.
That Baltimore group was very a lot a bunch of gamers who had been loaned from different NHL groups, gamers who had been solid off, and an ever-changing assortment of veterans passing by means of on their option to some place else or out of hockey altogether.
However this can be a Utica group will not be that. This can be a group with bona fide prospects. On the blue line alone are Simon Nemec, the second total decide within the 2022 NHL Draft, and Seamus Casey, one other jewel from that very same yr’s draft class. Ahead Nolan Foote, recalled to New Jersey on Monday together with ahead Shane Bowers, is a authentic NHL prospect. One other ahead, Chase Stillman, is a 2021 first-rounder who had a strong rookie efficiency final season.
2024 Utica Comets vs Syracuse Crunch
Utica’s veteran core can be strong on paper. Up entrance, Joe Gambardella solely returned this previous weekend, however Justin Dowling is a long-established veteran ahead. There’s captain Ryan Schmelzer together with Brian Halonen, who had 20 targets in solely 35 video games final season. Mike Hardman came to visit from the Rockford IceHogs after a 22-goal season, although he has been restricted to 5 video games. Max Willman has had success on the AHL degree. So has Bowers. The again finish has expertise in Nick DeSimone and Andy Welinski amongst its skilled arms.
On the ice, nonetheless, the outcomes are usually not there. Shut out 4 occasions in 13 video games, together with in every of their previous two residence video games, the Comets have mustered simply 21 targets to this point. Their 25.9 photographs per sport rank them thirty first within the AHL. That output, mixed with a 6.3 capturing share, makes for lots of irritating nights each for the Comets and their followers. In web, Nico Daws has numbers that look each bit as unhealthy as Utica’s report. But it surely’s tough to fault Daws, somebody who has proven that he can succeed at this degree. And never when Utica owns the AHL’s worst penalty kill at 71.4 %.
However these numbers are signs. What’s the trigger? Or causes-plural? Is that this report a matter of some significantly unlucky puck luck or is it extra?
Head coach Kevin Dineen, somebody who got here to Utica in 2021 with NHL head-coaching expertise and a deep bench resume, discovered himself out of a job Nov. 6. That call pushed assistant coach Ryan Dad or mum into an interim head-coaching position that can go for at the least of the remainder of this season. However it isn’t clear in any respect that it was teaching on the root of the Comets’ points.
As struggling groups so usually do, the Comets have discovered a number of methods to lose. The Rochester People got here into Utica again on Nov. 1 and hung eight targets on the Comets. And when it has appeared just like the Comets would possibly escape a sport with a win, these makes an attempt have fallen aside as effectively. In a Nov. 9 sport at Lehigh Valley, the Comets’ 3-2 survived lengthy into the third interval solely to see the Phantoms tie it with 3:29 to go. The dagger adopted with Lehigh Valley’s winner 3:10 into additional time.
This weekend has street video games in opposition to Syracuse on Friday and adopted by Rochester an evening later that begin a stretch of 10 of 13 video games on the street for the Comets, who solely have three residence video games remaining this calendar yr. Briefly, this case might get much more out of hand in a short time if the Comets are usually not capable of finding the extent that they need to be able to enjoying.
The Dineen firing despatched a jolt throughout the AHL. For one, in-season head-coaching firings are extraordinarily uncommon within the AHL. Earlier than Dineen’s ouster, an AHL head coach had not been fired in-season since Iowa’s Kurt Kleinendorst in 2014. Dineen can be somebody who has proven a capability to each develop and win. Kevin Bahl, Alexander Holtz, and Fabian Zetterlund developed enjoying for Dineen earlier than advancing to NHL roles in New Jersey and elsewhere. So did Nemec, who spent practically a full yr within the NHL earlier than this latest reassignment to the Comets. Dineen’s 432 teaching wins place fifth in AHL historical past, and he took the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award because the AHL’s coach of the yr in his rookie 2005-06 marketing campaign. And it was simply three years in the past that he led the Comets to an AHL-record 13 consecutive wins to open the 2021-22 season.
When Dineen arrived, particularly with that begin to his first season again in 2021, it appeared like this was a unique New Jersey growth program. Constructing a profitable custom has been a problem for the group going again practically 25 years. After the Albany River Rats’ powerhouse days of the mid- to late-Nineties despatched wave after wave of well-prepared gamers on to New Jersey, the developmental program fell into deep decline. New Jersey associates cycled by means of Albany, Lowell, again to Albany, after which on to Binghamton earlier than ending up in Utica in 2021. Going again to 2001, New Jersey AHL associates have solely reached the Calder Cup Playoffs six occasions; the group’s lone playoff sequence win on the AHL degree got here when Albany did so again in 2016. The final time a Devils affiliate went on an prolonged playoff run was again in 1998 when Albany reached the convention finals.
There could also be no clear reply for what has put Utica’s season in peril. Typically a mixture simply doesn’t work despite the fact that it looks as if it ought to on paper. That’s the nature of sports activities and one thing that’s much more elusive within the AHL with an ever-changing mixture of gamers and prospects attempting to determine themselves out. On Monday alone, the Comets noticed Bowers, DeSimone, Dowling, and Foote recalled by New Jersey.
What does matter is ensuring that gamers like Casey, Foote, Nemec, Stillman, and others are capable of play in a profitable setting, which is why the Devils can’t afford to see this slide lengthen for much longer. If it does, there goes the chance for these prospects to play high-pressure, demanding video games down the stretch. When the Calder Cup Playoffs arrive in April, these gamers have to be enjoying and never packing their baggage to go residence. And if this group is out of competition by, say, mid-December, then what? 4 months is a very long time to play out the string.
When the teaching image adjustments, and the losses nonetheless preserve coming, the main focus naturally will flip towards the gamers. Can they discover options? This league is about discovering options. It all the time has been. The NHL group calls up your finest participant two hours earlier than a sport? Discover a resolution? Want a back-up goaltender on quick discover. Work these contacts and provide you with a solution. Enjoying quick two gamers and requested to double-shift? A part of the gig at this degree.
These are questions and conditions that make the chapters of an AHL group’s season so intriguing. So many exterior components – causes past unhealthy bounces, accidents, and such which are the norm at any degree of the game – can influence an AHL group’s season.
The Comets’ skill to seek out these options – and shortly – might be important if they’re to avoid wasting their season.
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