stonecoldstevebernier

Juolevi now leads all AHL rookie defensemen in scoring, 7th overall amongst all AHL d-men.

I'd much rather see him on Horvat's wing than Schaller. Our team's beat up enough as it is, might as well give him a shot while the opportunity's there and see if it can spark some of that offensive upside in him again.

Gagner getting loaned to the Marlies instead of the Comets. Bit annoying that he goes to a division rival that's a perennial contender but not a huge loss for the Comets roster wise, rather see them use the players they have, vets who get sent down like that aren't always the most motivated anyway. Gaudette and Brisebois missing time hurts though, being that they're at two crucial positions at centre and defense. Guess it'll give some other guys a chance at getting into the rotation if they're out for any significant period.

Welcome to the forum! I mostly agree, I think the Comets will make the playoffs but don't see them as a contender yet. They have more young talent on the roster than they've ever had but that also means there will be growing pains throughout the year as a lot of these guys try to make the transition into being pros. I see them being contenders in a year or two once some of their prospects like Lind, Gadjovich, Palmu, Jasek, etc have all cooked a little longer in the minors. Then they'll hopefully have a good crop of second and third year prospects supported by another wave of rookies and a couple reliable vets, kind of how the Marlies got built up into a regular contender.

Hope to see McEneny rebound well in Utica this year. He was quite possibly my favourite player to watch in 2016-17 and if it weren't for the injury last year it likely would've been him instead of Sautner that got called up for that late season game action. Good to see that he's finally healthy enough to be returned to Utica.

Ben Birnell's picks for standouts in the first preseason game. Thoughts, @UticaHockey?

He's only been a pro for two years, he can still break out and become an NHL regular. Kids get expedited to the NHL so fast these days we're extremely quick to label players as busts. Not sure if we need another tweener in our system but I wouldn't write him off as a prospect at all.

Utica is pretty crowded for forwards at the moment, but Jimmy Lodge (attending camp on a PTO) could be interesting as centre depth. Former third round pick of the Jets who has some pro experience but got demoted to the ECHL in the final year of his ELC last season. Maybe could be one of those AHL late blooming Cam Darcy types who can come up and fill a spot if/when injuries strike.

So you'd trade Horvat or Boeser for Drouin? His junior stats and offensive instincts are meaningless if he hasn't come close to matching them at the NHL level yet. He's been in the league for four years, Boeser's been here for one and already put up better numbers than Drouin ever has. And Horvat's a complete player that brings assets to the table that Drouin flat out doesn't have and his stats are right there with Drouin's.

We're definitely terrible, but I can't see how Ottawa and Montreal are ranked above us. Boeser and Horvat are better than any forward on either of their entire rosters. Throw in Pettersson and we should be a solid 29th.

We could use some Grit in the bottom six, think the Flyers would take Gagner and a 5th?

Essentially an AHL PTO I guess, will likely just get cut early and sent to Utica's camp. The Comets' defense is lacking in the physical department.

Yeah, I have no issue with the signings given the role that they'll play. Like most people here its Gagner/Eriksson that I view as clogging up the roster given that they're placed in scoring roles and most of prospects are offensive types who aren't suited to a 4th line checking spot. I like having gritty guys like Roussel, Beagle, Schaller around as they fill a role that we don't have in our lineup or in our prospect pool. Eriksson's going nowhere but it'd be a dream to ship Gagner out somewhere with a retained salary. I'm not too concerned with them holding back guys like Dahlen, Gaudette, Lind, etc for this season as its not a bad thing at all for them to get experience in Utica first. But they do impede guys like Leipsic and Goldobin from getting legitimate shots.

I was disgusted by the fans, a 20 year old girl wins her first Grand Slam and they kept booing to the point she was in tears and couldn't even celebrate it. Completely ruined the moment for her. Good on Serena to stick up for her during her speech and calm the crowd down, but wish she could've kept her cool and made it a clean match.

That's amazing. The package for one team's entire season (76 games) is less than what I paid for a 10-game package last year. Most likely copping that even if it means I won't be able to watch all of them, that's an insane deal.