10/5/18 – Utica Comets vs. Toronto Marlies

This was a part of my Farmies:Rewind series where I reviewed games that had happened way before I had begun doing the Farmies series. Here’s a trimmed down version of the Farmies that covered their season opener at home.

Comets in White

  1st Period

• ah the classic no audio start

• GOAL – UTICA – 1-0 Comets: at the front of the net MacEwen(#15) turns with the puck to score, but traffic blocks him, fortunately the puck squeaks out to Boucher(#24) who starts the Comets season with a goal

• Some nice passing between Lind(#13) to Gaudette(#17) to Kero(#10) who’s one-timer on the powerplay goes off the post

• LOL Sautner(#6) attempts to break out of his own zone but is stopped by Woods(#21); not exactly sure what Woods was expecting to happen here

• Holy shit, don’t mind Gaudette(#17) working his way around the entire Marlies team for a shot on goal

• Hey that guy looks familiar, Subban steps up with speed for a shot on Bachman

• Juolevi(#48) leads the break-in, but is soooooooooooooooooooooo slow to get back to his own end ; granted this was his first real game post back surgery – but good lord when he leaves frame to return to his own end, it’s about 4 seconds to go from the Marlies blue line to the Comets blueline

2nd Period

• GOAL – TORONTO – 1-1 Tie: Marlies on the powerplay, and fucking Subbs fires a laser past Bachman to even it up

• Lind(#13) disrupts the Marlies break-out attempt with some aggressive forechecking hat lets Gaudette(#17) get a scoring opportunity off an Archibald(#25) pass

• Juolevi(#48) gettin’ bodied out there like a fool!

• also, LOL at Joe Roberts with the You-OH-lu-vy

• Comets on the penalty kill; Gaunce(#16) leads a 2-on-1 and then Woods(#21) gets brutally cross-checked by some guy you may have heard of; BUT ITS FUCKING GAGNER!

• Bachman with a great pad save on the 4-on-4

• GOAL – TORONTO – Marlies 2-1: Pierre Engvall has an extra step on Sifers(# 26) and roofs it over Bachmans shoulder to give the Marlies the lead

• GOAL – TORONTO – Marlies 3-1: Tim Liljegren learns from Engvall and goes gloveside on Bachman less than 3 minutes after the Engvall goal to give the Marlies a 2 goal lead

• A nice quick feed from Chatfield(#5) to Gaudette(#17) almost leads to a goal

• Gaunce strips the puck to give himself his SECOND breakaway on a Comets penalty; I’m noticing this is kind of a Gaunce thing on the penalty kill, guy gets A LOT of these chances

• GOAL – TORONTO – 4-1 Marlies: Chatfield(#5 )races down the ice on the break-in attempt but loses the puck, his D-partner Juolevi is nowhere to be found and Trevor Moore, all alone, makes it a 3 goal lead

• Man I wish the Canucks had a vet like this Gagner fellow on their farm team to teach them a thing or two about the powerplay

• Quick passing from the powerplay unit of Kero(#10) MacEwen(#15) Juolevi(#48) and Dahlen(#54)

• GOAL – UTICA – 4-2 Marlies: MacEwen(#15) gets dumped to the ice but that doesn’t deter him as he picks up the puck in front of the net and shows tremendous patience to get his fire goal of the season

3rd Period

• GOAL – UTICA – 4-3 Marlies: Sautner(#6) stops the Marlies break-out attempt and it lands on Boucher’s(#24) who rifles it to put the Comets within 1; ignore Joe Roberts, it was clearly Sautner stopping the break-out attempt

• GOAL – TORONTO – Marlies 5-3: With 9 minutes left in the period Carl Grundstrom takes a shot at Bachman who has no clue where it is, and the Marlies are back up by 2

• Lind(#13) with another solo drive through 4 Marlies players to get a shot on net

• I’m actually pretty surprised at how Lind is fundamentally the same player at the beginning of this season as he is now, seeing how often he is trying to drive the net, show how its actually surprising that he’s only got 2 points on the season…I wonder if the early scoring draught rattled his confidence a bit…because in this opener he’s looked pretty great with Gaudette and Archibald as linemates

• Brendan Woods gets dinged for high sticking with 7 minutes left in the 3rd period…oh boy not a great start to the season for Woods

• Juolevi(#48) with some quick passing on the powerplay, I especially like the last pass on Boucher’s(#24) one-timer attempt where he looks and quickly angles his body like he isn’t passing back to Boucher…pretty slick move

• GOAL – TORONTO – Marlies 6-3: Bachman despite seeing the Marlies player rushing him behind the net plays it backwards INTO the Marlies player…actually pretty baffling from him here…completely blows any momentum the Comets could have generated on the powerplay

• GOAL – TORONTO – Marlies 7-3: Gaudette(#17) attempts a cross-ice pass from the boards to Boucher(#2 4)but its picked off by a Marlies player, and they easily walk it in for the empty netter

• Marlies goaltender is lying down in the crease, Darcy(#11) steals the puck and wraps around the net, has a completely open net to shoot on but has it deflected away

Final Score: 7-3 Toronto Marlies

In the first game of the season facing the reigning Calder Cup champions, the team did actually PRETTY GOOD all things considered, had they had Demko in net instead of Bachman, a lot of those soft glove side goals probably get stopped, and that 6th goal blunder probably never happens. Pretty interesting to see some of the early line chemistry from the team…Gaudette/Lind/Archibald was a very effective line all things considered, I think had Gaudette been left to play out the season with Utica he and Lind probably would’ve started to gel rather quickly, because even in their first real game together, the chemistry looked pretty solid.