Ice Chips 06'-07'

Talk about some depth

How about that night from the line of David Hukalo, Pascal Morency and Martin Gascon. Five goals and five assists, not too shabby. Especially since this is the "third line," one that had been broken up not too long ago.

I guess we can safely say the Komets have plenty of depth.

Fort Wayne defeated the Flint Generals 6-4 at Memorial Coliseum on Friday. The Komets were never able to pull away in this one, partially because they let down for a bit and partially because they gave up a couple of power-play goals which hurt. But the Komets swept the home-and-home series and kept pace with the Muskegon Fury for the best record in the league. (The Fury is four points ahead and the Komets have only four games remaining.)

By the way, the Komets remain four points ahead of Rockford. Did you see what happened out there? The IceHogs were clinging to a 2-1 lead over Elmira after two periods, and then Rockford went on to win 8-1. I guess the IceHogs wanted to keep pace with the Komets.

This was my first game back watching the Komets in about a month. I was impressed, aside from that lull in the second period when they let down. But all three lines were looking good and that'll be important in the playoffs; they can't expect J.C. Ruid, Guy Dupuis and the big names to carry them. It'll take performances like this from the boys like Hukalo, who had his first hat trick in over 14 months.

By the way, I only caught the Morency hit to the knee of Jan Jas out of the corner of my eye. I can tell you he was a bit unsure how it happened but said it certainly wasn't intentional. We'll have to see if Flint makes a stink about the hit, which didn't draw a penalty from referee Kevin Towers.

-- By Justin A. Cohn, The Journal Gazette

From blaze to laze

Wow, I thought this was going to be a rout. The Komets were up 4-1, Pascal Morency looked like a demon with two goals and a vicious hit, and the Generals looked in a funk.

Not anymore. With two goals late in the second period, the Generals have taken advantage of the Komets' act of letting up. Fort Wayne now leads 4-3 after two periods.

This isn't a game the Komets can let get away, not with Muskegon winning and Rockord tied elsewhere. This is a great chance for the Komets to stay in the Tarry Cup race and get some more distance between themselves and Rockford for the first seed in the Western Conference. The Generals are scrappy, but still a team the Komets should beat at home -- when Fort Wayne has a three-goal lead!

-- By Justin A. Cohn, The Journal Gazette

My awards votes

I made my votes for the team awards and I'm not afraid to share them.

Best Defensive Forward: J.C. Ruid.

Unsung Hero Award: Matt Syroczynski.

Defenseman of the Year: Mario Larocque.

Rookie of the Year: Martin Gascon.

Most Improved Player: Arthur Kiyaga.

"True Komet" Award: Bruce Richardson.

Mr. Hustle Award: Pascal Morency.

This wasn't easy this year. The one I'm most unsure about is Best Defensive Forward, but I'm going with the good plus/minus rating, short-handed goals and faceoffs on this one. Also tough was Best Defenseman, since Guy Dupuis was also so good this season, but I felt Larocque was more of a game-changer. I also thought about Syroczynski as most improved.

-- By Justin A. Cohn, The Journal Gazette

New stuff

First off, we have a new poll at Komets Korner. Click here.

To see today's story on defenseman Andrew Lackner, click here.

Finally, for my spin on the goings on in the UHL and with the Komets, click here. (I know I'm a bit behind, but give me a break. I was on paternity leave.)

Up or down to the competition

I was interviewed this morning by my friends at the TNT Morning Show, 98.9 FM. I was a bit taken aback when they asked if the Komets might be better off facing a team like Rockford early in the playoffs, rather than a lower-echelon team such as Chicago.

My response: "Uh, no."

I understand, however, where this comes from. The Komets have, on more than one occasion, played down to their competition this season. That's why they have nine losses combined to lowly Bloomington and Chicago, yet they're 4-2-0 against league-best Muskegon.

But in a seven-game series, I find it hard to believe the Komets, with all their talent, couldn't overcome a team like the Hounds, even if they're not completely amped up. I don't think getting the Komets fired up will be a problem, anyway. According to some higher-ups in the organization, this is the most unified and motivated team Fort Wayne has had in at least a decade. Even more so than the 2003 Colonial Cup championship team.

Only time will tell if that's true. But we don't need to make things any harder by asking for tougher competition. That's just silly.

• Tickets for Games 1 and 2 of the playoffs go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. at Memorial Coliseum and through www.ticketmaster.com. They will be April 13 and 14 at the Coliseum, regardless of opponent. Prices will be the same as regular-season prices.

-- By Justin A. Cohn, The Journal Gazette

Back in the saddle again

I'm back in the saddle again. And yes, my NCAA bracket is looking good, thanks for asking. (Ohio State and UCLA in the final!) The family is also doing well. Best remark I heard at practice, my first after three weeks of paternity leave, came from Jonathan Goodwin.

"Hey Cohner, congrats on the kid. Is he doing OK?" Goodwin said.

"Yes, the kid is doing OK. Except it's a girl," I responded.

"Well, hmm, babies all look the same anyway," Goodwin said before skating away.

No one ever said hockey players were tactful.

OK, on to hockey. Much has changed since I last saw these K's skate: They're the hottest team in the league, winning seven of their last 10; the mood in the locker room is exceptionally light; gone are the likes of Kelly Miller (again), Bogdan Rudenko (I still never had a chance to ask what he thought of "Borat") and Ryan Jorde (after two stints, can we admit he was a disappointment?).

Watching practice, the thing that stood out was how much better the defensemen looked, and not just because Andrew Lackner was there. Mario Larocque and Guy Dupuis looked sound -- what else is new? -- and Arthur Kiyaga and A.J. Bozoian looked smoother than I remembered.

As for the forwards, yeah, Terry Marchant will make things look better. But a minus-2 rating in 11 games with the Komets? Hmm, I'll have to keep an eye on that. And I never would have thought Matt Syroczynski would be a 20-goal scorer, and he's only one away from that.

So I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season plays out. It would be a gas to see the Komets get home-ice advantage after everyone handed Muskegon the Tarry Cup back in November.

Regardless, it should be a fun ride.

-- By Justin A. Cohn, The Journal Gazette

Pep talkin'

Maybe Pat Bingham ought to light his guys up more often.

He wasn't really taking credit for it, but after the Komets' 6-2 win over Chicago tonight -- and strange how suddenly a team that had so recently won four straight desperatley needed this "W" -- he revealed that he got a little snippy with the boys in the first five minutes.  He doesn't do it often, he says, and it's really not his way, but it seemed to work.

After a so-so first period, the Komets blitzed the Hounds with 33 shots on goal, went 4 of 6 on the power play and effortlessly snuffed the Hounds last six power-play chances after giving up the goal on their first.  It was the kind of special teams display that fit this team's M.O. as one of the top special-teams clubs in the "U", and it was aided and abetted by more solid work between the pipes by Kevin St. Pierre, who stood tall when he needed to.

The glove save he made in the second with the Komets up 3-1 but the issue still in doubt was worth the price of admission itself.  That one goes straight to the highlight vault.

Of note also was Pascal Morency's go-ahead goal in the first on a play set up by David Hukalo beating everyone to the puck in the Chicago zone. You want a snapshot of how you win a Colonial Cup -- and I think this team's definitely got it in them -- that's it right there.

-- Ben Smith

 

   

Shot down

OK, so first things first:  The Komets got hosed tonight.

Jason Tapp was so far back in his goal on Martin Gascon's last shootout chance he could have gotten his mail delivered there.  The puck was somewhere underneath him. Ergo, the puck had to be in the net, too.

But referee Scott Bokal (who???) waved it off, and Quad City left with a wild 7-6 shootout victory that came right out of downtown Tombstone. And even if they probably ought to still be playing on, understand also that the Komets put themselves in that position to start with.

Again they took too many penalties, for which they finally paid when Quad City put four power play goals on them. Over and above that, they threw the puck all over the lot, played sloppy in their own end, and threw the puck all over the lot.

Yeah, I know I aready said that. But it bears repeating.

Bottom line is this was not the team we saw win four in a row.  Even Pat Bingham, once he'd stopped blaming the officiating and even the temperature in the building, acknowledged that the team came out sluggish and everything spun out from that.

And so it's off to Muskegon. And here's hoping we never again see Scott . . . what's his name again?

-- Ben Smith

Chin, Fletcher inducted

The Komets have announced their 2007 Komet Hall of Fame class, and the names are familiar ones.

Front and center are the Captain, Colin Chin, who played 10 seasons atr center for the Komets and was a key part of the 1993 Turner Cup team, and longtime fan fave  Steve Fletcher.  Also being inducted will be Terry McDougall, who starred at center from 1975-82, and longtime off-ice official Win Rood, who first started working in that capacity in 1969.

-- Ben Smith

Suddenly on fire

What a difference a couple of weeks makes.

A couple of weeks ago the Komets couldn't buy a  goal with cash money, Rockford had caught them in the West, and they looked like a gassed team, physically and mentally.  Now they look like (and I know this is bad luck) the team to beat for the Cup.

I say this after a 3-for-3  weekend in which they scored 14 goals and smoked Rockford and Muskegon back to back . . . and now it's not crazy at all to suggest they could catch the Fury for home ice throughout the playoffs. Tonight's 5-1 win pulled them within four points with two weeks to go. It's doable.

If you saw the game tonight, you definitely know it's doable. Pat Bingham declined to say it was their best horn-to-horn game of the season, but it was the best I've seen them play.  They were .500 on the power play and gave Muskegon squat on its. Five different players scored goals -- and, wonder of wonders, four of them were forwards.  Once again they crashed the net with abandon, creating all sorts of chances in close.

And unlike Saturday, they didn't let the Fury back in it.

Don't know about you.  But if  I'm the rest of the league, Fort Wayne's my No. 1 target at the moment.

-- Ben Smith

Red light district

OK.  So who turned the power back on?

Nine goals in two games for a hockey team that couldn't find the net with a GPS and native guides, and what gives here?  Guy Dupuis blamed karma tonight after the 4-3 win over Rockford (and frankly I think the pennant race is over now, because the Komets clearly seem to have the IceHogs' number), but Pat Bingham was closer to it, I think: They're shooting more and turning giveaways into 3-on-2 and 3-on-1 breaks more and clogging the goalmouth with bodies more.

I'd been told prior to the game that the Komets forechecked like fiends up in Port Huron Friday, and for most of 2 1/2 periods I saw more of the same Saturday. Every time a puck went on net there were two or three or four white shirts down there to either screen or collect the garbage. Amazing how many red lights you can turn on when you do that.

And now on to Muskegon.

-- Ben Smith

Better half shows up again

OK, I think I've got this figured out now:  The Fort Wayne Komets suffer from multiple personality disorder.

I know falling back on pyscho babble makes your head hurt (mine, too), but no other recourse is possible to explain how a team that struggles so mightily with the poor relations can rise to the occasion against the blue-bloods, sometimes literally overnight.

Both Kevin St. Pierre and Mario Larocque acknowledged as much in the wake of a stellar 3-1 win over Rockford tonight, which once again unhitched the tie for the lead in the UHL West and sent the Komets back in front by two points.  St. Pierre was sharp as a blade in goal, the Komets were aggressive when they needed to be and let the IceHogs be the over-aggressive ones, and the result was a win that Pat Bingham characterized as maybe the biggest of the season so far.

Given the circumstances and the proximity to the playoffs, he's probably right. And if this is what playing the Rockfords does for these guys, I'd like to see what would happen if they scheduled teams like this every night.  This is a team that seems to turn it off and on at will, a tic that Daniel Goneau shrugged off Sunday ("We won't be playing Bloomington in the playoffs," he was heard to say), and Larocque sounded a warning about.

"For some reason we don't come out as hard," he said. "We lost three in a row against Bloomington. There's no reason for that. We should be ready for every team, every night."

-- Ben Smith

The puzzle goes on

Good news for the Komets, on a night when good news was scarce:  At least they won't run into Bloomington in the playoffs.

The worst team in the United Hockey League flummoxed them for the third straight time Saturday, 2-1, and even though I watched it I can't figure out how.  The Komets outshot the Thunder 33-24, they were all over Kris Tebbs in the third period, pelting him with 19 shots . . . and yet Bloomington scored the only goal.

John Spoltore scored it from a ridiculous angle on a rare Bloomington rush.  It was one of only five shots the Thunder had in the third. Mostly they laid back, tried to take away center ice and played Gumby hockey, absorbing every blow like the famously bizarre rubber horse.

Whatever, it worked. Pat Bingham tried again to blame it on referee Jim Hawthorne swallowing his whistle in the attacking zone, but he also acknowledged that the Komets weren't sufficiently zealous in going into the corners. And too often they fired away from the perimeter without waiting for Tebbs to be appropriately screened.

One more piece of evidence for an old adage:  It's not the shots you take, it's the kind of shots you take.

On to tomorrow, and Rockford.

-- Ben Smith

 

Simon, not so simple

Went fishing for comments tonight on Chris Simon's two-hander to
Ryan Hollweg's face in the Islanders-Rangers tilt the other night, and landed a few both solicited and otherwise.

Mike Franke had the most interesting insight. He pointed out that as brutal as Simon's action was, it would never have happened had the referee not swallowed his whistle on the preceding play, when Hollweg checked Simon from behind, driving him headfirst into the glass.

Hollweg should have gotten at least two for that. But there was no call, Simon saw red, and shortly thereafter he was swinging his stick like Paul Bunyan's axe at Hollweg's head.

Taking the law into your own hands: It never ends pretty, does it?

-- Ben Smith

E for effort

One missing hockey team, found.

The Fort Wayne Komets -- the Komets who've spent most of the season leading the UHL West -- showed up at Memorial Coliseum at last Wednesday night, having been visiting parts unknown for a spell.  It was refreshing to say the least.

These Komets beat Quad City to every loose puck, forechecked like demons and went aggressively to the net, creating chances far more numerous than the 2-1 final reflects. As Kevin St. Pierre said afterward, if the game this hockey team played had been properly rewarded, they'd have put five or six on the board.

Makes you wonder where this has all been these past few weeks.  Makes you wonder, if they can bring every night what they brought Wednesday, just what this team might be capable of.

I guess we'll find out.

-- Ben Smith

It's a girl

For those of you who might have been wondering:  Komets beat writer and first-team Ice Chips blogger Justin Cohn is officially a dad. Tabitha Sydney Cohn, 6 pounds and 4 ounces, was born at 5:33 p.m.  on Saturday.   Mom, Dad and offspring are all doing fine.

No word on whether the baby's first words were, "How do you get shut out twice in a row at home  by Port Huron?"

-- Ben Smith

Ugh, The Sequel

Deja eeeyew all over again,  or something like that.

Two games against lowly Port Huron, two shutout losses in which the Komets took dumb penalties, played dumb hockey and, more to the point, played uninspired hockey.

I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I sense a pattern here.

This is a team (and stop me if you've heard this a hundred gazillion times before) that definitely, absolutely plays down to the competition.  It did it again tonight, making Dustin Traylen look like the greatest goaltender in the history of hockey and Port Huron like the Guy Lafleur/Yvan Cournoyer/Larry Robinson Canadiens.

Pat Bingham did raise an interesting point though, noting that the Flags are a tough team to play against because they play low-risk hockey and protect their own end and pick and choose their spots when forechecking and running break-outs.  And Traylen's a big kid who doesn't leave a lot of juicy rebounds lying around.

Still . . . this is a team the Komets should beat in their sleep.  Or maybe trying to beat them in their sleep is the problem here.

-- Ben Smith   

Power failure

One period down with Port Huron in again, and this looks a lot like eight days ago.

Nine penalties.  Lots of odd-man skating.  Zippo scoring.

Once again, the Komets are making Dustin Traylen look like a genetic experiment:  Jacques Plante grafted onto Patrick Roy grafted onto Marty Brodeur.  And where did the power play go, anyway?

Oh-for-four in the first period tacked onto the dismal vanishing act in Quad City adds up to one goal in the last 17 power-play chances.  Not good.

Talk at ya again when this one's done.

-- Ben Smith

Another trade

Just got off the phone not long ago with David Franke, who tells me the Komets have squeezed in one last deal before the trade deadline.

Going to Chicago is forward Kelly Miller, who played in just seven games and had one assist in his latest stint as a Komet.  Coming is Andrew Lackner, a 23-year-old rookie defenseman who's played the last 13 games with the Hounds but has spent the balance of this season (40 games) with Bloomington, where he scored three goals and had five assists.

He had nine assists in his 13 games with the Hounds, and also was a United Hockey League All-Star.  At 6-foot and 195 pounds he's no Brent Henley, but Franke said he'll capably fill the vacancy left by Ryan Jorde, who was dealt yesterday to Flint in the Terry Marchant deal.

"Since we gave up Jorde to Flint we wanted to make sure we had seven defensemen here," Franke said, noting the continuing issues with Mike Dombkiewicz's back injury. "So that’s why we got Lackner. We didn’t wasn’t to go with six and if somebody gets hurt, then you’re down to five."

-- Ben Smith

Team adds Marchant

After thinking about it all week, the Komets pulled the trigger on a deal Thursday, acquiring center Terry Marchant from Flint 24 hours ahead of the trading deadline.

Marchant comes to Fort Wayne with a rep as a scorer -- he leads the Generals with 18 goals and 47 points in 48 games, and last year had 31 goals and 85 points -- and, as a 31-year-0ld 9-year pro, will add yet another veteran presence to a Komets team that already skews fairly old.

In return, Flint gets Bogdan Rudenko and Ryan Jorde. The take on the deal from up north suggests that Flint thinks it traded finesse for some toughness and edge. We'll see.

-- Ben Smith