By Jay Flemma, Special to Facewash Magazine
UTICA, NY – The Utica Comets season has been like an old Brady Bunch episode, only instead of Jan plaintively wailing “Marsha Marsha Marsha,” it’s “Marky Marky Marky.” For a journalist it’s getting difficult to come to come up with something new, because every other column starts “Jacob Markstrom comma.”
Jacob Markstrom made 37 saves! Jacob Markstrom made 56 saves! Jacob Markstrom 78 saves! Jacob Markstrom gnawed through an entire Redwood with his bare teeth! Jacob Markstrom jumped the Snake River on a motorcycle! Jacob Markstrom cuts through a nail, but can still slice a tomato wafer thin!
Seriously though, with every one of his exploits, he tops what he did the game before. It was 42 saves last night against a desperate yet still frustrated Adirondack Flames squad, who have now dripped seven straight to the Comets.
That had to be a long…cold…dark…ride back to Glens Falls after a 4-1 loss where they actually outshot the Comets 43-29. In fact, they out shot the Comets badly in each of the game’s three periods.
Meanwhile Utica seems back on track after dropping three of its last four, including a 2-1 home loss to the worst team in the AHL, the hapless Iowa Wild. They even endured a maddening 0-for-18 stretch on the power play during the skid.
“We needed a tough game to get back on track,” admitted head coach Travis Green. “We weren’t thinking about not scoring or the power play not working. We just knew were playing a really good hockey team…and we had to bring the best game we could.”
Things were tense early for the Comets in that regard. They took a 2-1 into the second period after goals by Dustin Jeffreys and Darren Archibald sandwiched one by Flames left wing David Wolf, but then the power play bugaboo surfaced again as they squandered 3:53 of power play time, 17 seconds of which was 5-3.
“I was worried then. That’ usually when the other team turns the tables and scores a couple goals, feeding off the emotion of killing off the penalty,” explained AWITP correspondent Rodney Zilla.
It did trigger a momentum shift in fact – in the Comets favor. Barely two minutes after the second penalty was killed, Will Acton scored off a Brendan Gaunce assist, chopping home a loose puck in front. And two minutes after that Kent Huskins wristed a rebound past Flames goalie Brad Thiessen to end the scoring.
“It was nice to see the offense erupt a bit. Four different guys scored goals, and they held the lead tight though the Flames really brought it for 60 minutes tonight,” concluded Zilla, and he’s right. This has to be the next logical step in the evolution of the Comets: becoming a team that keeps opponents down and without hope rather than one that allows them to hang around. Dominate the bad teams, regularly beat the good teams, and play better than .500 against the elite teams.
Style points count for absolutely nothing on the scoreboard but they do wonders for a teams psyche. A team has to believe they can impose their will on the other team. That’s the secret to a winning attitude: It’s knowing that you will win, rather than thinking that you can win. And in the clutch, that goes a long way.
For Exhibit A see “Flames, Adirondack.” If the Comets aren’t in their collective heads, I’ll eat my boxer shorts.
“We like to make teams adjust to us…to play our game,” Green has said again and again and again in the media scrum, and the Comets have bought into it with an unselfish groupthink attitude. They are talented, and they are tough. This team is a graven image like an Easter Island monolith, and it will take some serious Stonecutters to defeat them in a long playoff series.
“We were strong offensively and we got great goaltending and defense and when everything comes together you can beat good teams,” explained Gaunce, who tallied two assists. “It was big to get a win against a division opponent too.”
With the win, the Comets open up a four point lead on the Flames in the North Division of the Western Conference with a whopping four games in hand. The Grand Rapids Griffins (Detroit Red Wings affiliate) and Milwaukee Admirals (Nashville Predators affiliate) visit the Aud next week as they lock horns with the Comets for the first time this season with first place overall in the Western Conference hanging in the balance.
