Vancouver Canucks’ AHL team: Utica Comets roster, lineup, projections
To lay it all out for you, line by line, here’s one possible 2019-20, opening-night lineup for Baertschi and the boys:
UTICA :
* = pro-veteran status
FORWARD:
Baertschi*–Graovac*–Goldobin
Boucher*–MacEwen–Bailey
Perron–Malone–Jasek
Gadjovich–Hamilton*–Lind
> scratch/ECHL: Camper* (C); Arseneau (LW), Bancks (LW/V), Sadowy (W), Sorenson (C), Stevenson (W/C)
DEFENCE:
Juolevi–Rafferty
Sautner–Biega*
Teves–Brisebois
> scratch/ECHL: Chatfield, Eliot, Blujus, Frye, LeBlanc, Petgrave, Thow
GOAL:
Bachman
DiPietro
> scratch/ECHL: McIntyre; Kielly
PP:
1 Baertschi–Graovac–Goldobin
Juolevi–Boucher
2 Jasek–MacEwen–Perron
Rafferty–Teves
PK:
1 Hamilton–Bailey
Sautner–Biega
2 Gadjovich–MacEwen
Brisebois–Rafferty
There’s a potential story unfolding here from all the improved organizational depth, how the Comets could achieve something special this season, but just like all of our lives, everything depends on the good fortunes of the Canucks.
Presently, the Comets are stacked up front.
This season the forward ranks in Utica will be emboldened with four key veterans who’ve already played a few hundred pro games.
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These are important mentors to help professionalize the impressionable youth landing on the farm, solid NHL-depth players who’ll count towards the AHL veteran cap: Baertschi, Reid Boucher, Tyler Graovac, and Wacey Hamilton.
They’ll occupy four of the five veteran spots allotted to an AHL lineup, and could be key components for a Comets Calder Cup contender. Biega on defence counts as the fifth veteran. Conversely, the other 13 players in the lineup must have each dressed for less than a few hundred pro games, so goes the AHL developmental rule.
Let’s take a closer look at Utica’s projected depth.
Graovac looked okay playing down in the Canucks lineup with limited ice time during his five preseason games. He scored a goal, was a minus-three, and only won 42.9 percent of his faceoffs. Despite the stats, he looked pretty good at times, especially when he was able to unload his hard and accurate shot.
On a team with a small horde of skilled wingers yet few skilled centres, it seems obvious that Graovac will centre the top line with a chance to lead the Comets to the promised land. Most likely he’d be lining up with wingers Baertschi and Goldobin, who’ll make a formidable offensive trio that could even find success at the NHL level.
Looking to the second line, MacEwen probably hasn’t played much centre since junior, but with all the depth now pouring over onto the wings someone’s needs to run with the opportunity. MacEwen is listed as a winger/centre.
He also scores goals and drives the play with his hard, gritty, two-way game. If he can shift back to centre for the Comets this season — having him in the lineup on the second line with Boucher and big Justin Bailey on his wings for all the key defensive matchups — could help create some valuable offensive space for the other lines in Utica.
If the hardest matchups are absorbed by the top two lines in a quest to unlock secondary scoring, then centering the third line could be relatively easy. This structure creates a space for undersized and offensive forwards like centre Seamus Malone, left winger Francis Perron, and right winger Lukas Jasek, who are each an offensive threat in their own right.
Wacey Hamilton is a solid AHL vet who wins faceoffs and defensive battles, and in a pinch can provide NHL-injury depth in a fourth-line, defensive role, but he’s not gonna win any hearts and minds for a Canucks call-up.
Hamilton will make a good fit as the fourth-line centre mentor who brings stability to the penalty kill, and to the bottom six where twenty-year-old wingers Jonah Gadjovich and Kole Lind will be working hard to develop their pro games. Fortunately, both of these kids have some grit and project as bottom six NHL forwards, making the fourth-line opportunity a suitable development slot to grow their pro games a little while longer.