Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Fortunes can change quickly in the AHL. For better and for worse.
Just ask the Utica Comets.
After missing the Calder Cup Playoffs last season, the Comets came into 2024-25 looking for – and needing – a bounce-back effort.
They got anything but that over the season’s first six weeks.
They were shut out by the rival Syracuse Crunch, 5-0, on opening night. That was followed by a 4-1 defeat to Rochester a night later.
An 8-1 loss on home ice to the Amerks on Nov. 1 dropped the Comets to 0-8-0-0. Opponents were outscoring Utica, 37-14.
The skid prompted a coaching change, as the parent New Jersey Devils replaced Kevin Dineen on Nov. 6 and named assistant coach Ryan Parent the Comets’ interim head coach for the remainder of this season. But the struggles continued. Utica forced overtime in three straight games, but couldn’t get in the win column. They were shut out in back-to-back home games as the winless streak reached 13 on Nov. 16.
But a good week of practice can be a remedy. By design, the AHL schedule prioritizes practice time, and Utica made the most of a reset opportunity. By the time they came back out for a road date with Syracuse on Nov. 22, the Comets looked like a different team. Captain Ryan Schmelzer scored his first goal of the season, and Mike Hardman struck twice in the final 9:54 of the third period to give the Comets a 4-3 victory, their first win of the season.
The next night at Rochester, Hardman and Schmelzer each pocketed another goal, Brian Halonen chipped in two more goals, and Nico Daws turned in a 35-save performance in a 5-1 win. And on Nov. 27, the Comets treated their home fans to their first win at the Adirondack Bank Center this season, a 6-3 decision over Providence.
Follow that with road wins in Springfield and Providence over the weekend, including a 33-save shutout by Daws on Saturday, and the team that had started 0-10-1-2 was suddenly riding a five-game winning streak.
Personal feel-good moments started coming as well. Nathan Légaré, who scored the winning goal in Providence on Saturday night, earned a recall and made his NHL debut on Monday after nearly 200 games in the AHL with the Pittsburgh, Montreal and New Jersey organizations. Hardman, who signed with the Devils over the summer, was also in the lineup that night, his first NHL game in nearly two years.
Rookie defenseman Seamus Casey has been excellent since being assigned to the Comets after starting the season with New Jersey. Coming out of the University of Michigan, Casey earned first team all-conference honors as a sophomore last season when he had 45 points (seven goals, 38 assists) in 39 games. The Devils view Casey as a key part of their future after taking him as a second-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, and he won a gold medal with Team USA at the IIHF World Junior Championship in 2024.
The Comets also added an experienced defender to their roster last week when they acquired Dmitry Osipov from Hershey. Osipov brings a 6-foot-4, 229-pound presence to the Utica blue line as well as dressing-room character. Along with being a member of last year’s Calder Cup championship team with the Bears, the eighth-year pro earned considerable credit for having assisted in the development of young prospects Ivan Miroshnichenko and Bogdan Trineyev as they acclimated themselves to North America.
The Comets are starting to dig themselves out of the hole created by a 13-game winless streak, but lots of work remains to be done, of course. Friday’s meeting with the Bruins – a team they have beaten twice in the last 10 days – is Utica’s final home game until after Christmas, and the team still remains nine points below the North Division playoff line.
But there is hope back in Utica.
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
