2021/22 Utica Comets and ECHL Talk

[JimEIV]

Somebody needs to let me know the best pre and post game bars/restaurants in Utica. I plan on making multiple trips this year.

 

[Legionnaire11]

Looking for some info on players who made their NHL debut last season. What kind of future outlook do these guys have?

Kevin Bahl
Tyce Thompson
Mikhail Maltsev
Yegor Sharangovich
Marian Studenic

 

[Billdo]

Looking for some info on players who made their NHL debut last season. What kind of future outlook do these guys have?

Kevin Bahl
Tyce Thompson
Mikhail Maltsev
Yegor Sharangovich
Marian Studenic

Sharangovich looked to be every part of a future 30 goal scorer, he's got a real quick shot and gets it off very well. Studenic looks like a fringe NHLer, probably a bottom 6 injury call up but a very solid AHLer. Same for Maltsev. Bahl looked good in his brief showing. Not sure his ceiling but he's at worst a decent bottom pairing defenseman I'd imagine. Thompson is intriguing. I would imagine he gets a full year with Utica. I don't really know how to explain him tbh.

 

[AfroThunder396]

Looking for some info on players who made their NHL debut last season. What kind of future outlook do these guys have?

Kevin Bahl
Tyce Thompson
Mikhail Maltsev
Yegor Sharangovich
Marian Studenic

Sharangovich - Floor of a 20 goal 3rd line winger who can PP, ceiling of a 30+ goal 2nd liner. His shot is outstanding.
Thompson - Very raw and needs quite a bit of development time. Floor of a career journeyman, ceiling of a 2nd/3rd line center.
Maltsev - Great physical tools and some modest offensive talent, needs to work on his awareness and decision making. Floor of career minor leaguer, ceiling of 4th line grinder.
Studenic - Good PK player, passable skating and shooting but limited vision and puck skills. Floor career minor leaguer, ceiling of 4th line PK specialist.
Kevin Bahl - Very good skater for his size, physical and excellent in his zone. Floor 3rd pairing PK defenseman, ceiling 2nd pairing defenseman.

 

[UticaHockey]

Saw this on Twitter.

 

[Clinton Comets EHL]

Saw this on Twitter.

This is interesting, indeed.

 

[Call Me Al]

questforstanley has a lot of pull it seems

 

[Triumph]

I'd be surprised if this is how the organization chose to do this. You'd think there would be an announcement that Dennehy is stepping down.

I hope it's not that, anyway, because that's a shitty way to do things.

 

[UticaHockey]

If you scroll down to the Utica Comets section here there is no head coach listed.

NJ Devils Staff Directory

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

Saw this on Twitter.

 

[Nubmer6]

Computer glitch. Fire the web guys

 

[Quest for Stanley]

A shocker after leading Bingo to a 7 win, 27 loss season? Dead last in the AHL with a .314 win percentage.

Web guy has the inside scoop? Dennehy relieved of coaching duties? Reassigned to scout? Dominoes starting to fall, announcements on the way

 

[Devils731]

Is QFS the web guy? Or does he/she have a crystal ball?

Are you asking us about yourself?

 

[Quest for Stanley]

Rick Kowalsky replaces Dennehy?

 

[Guttersniped]

Rick Kowalsky replaces Dennehy?

Dennehy is listed on the Prudential Staff Directory when I just checked it so don’t get too excited.

Prudential Center

 

[Bad Goalie]

Dennehy is listed on the Prudential Staff Directory when I just checked it so don’t get too excited.

View attachment 450847

Prudential Center

He is also now listed in the New Jersey Staff directory that UticaHockey posted above. Guess we'll have to live with the guy so many posters disapprove of strongly. The Utica fan base won't be all that surprised if he sucks since they weren't satisfied with their last AHL coach, Trent Cull, either. Seems like a so called up and coming team full of young prospects should be coached by a younger, energetic, rising star in the coaching ranks that would better reach the young players or at least a guy with a history of having a lot of success with young prospects. Am I incorrect in thinking that doesn't describe Dennehy?

 

[Guttersniped]

He is also now listed in the New Jersey Staff directory that UticaHockey posted above. Guess we'll have to live with the guy so many posters disapprove of strongly. The Utica fan base won't be all that surprised if he sucks since they weren't satisfied with their last AHL coach, Trent Cull, either. Seems like a so called up and coming team full of young prospects should be coached by a younger, energetic, rising star in the coaching ranks that would better reach the young players or at least a guy with a history of having a lot of success with young prospects. Am I incorrect in thinking that doesn't describe Dennehy?

There’s a poster who keeps crapping on Dennehy and will not stop posting his coaching record without acknowledging the circumstances, I would encourage you to ignore them.

Merrimack College is very small school that probably shouldn’t even be a D1 program in Hockey East. Dennehy not only built up the program in his 13 years there, he saved it as the school was close to dumping it when he took it over. He fought to keep it alive and funded in the early years, which is why his record is so rugged his first ~4 years there. He was working with limited resources.

He improved it, got it into the NCAA tourney his 6th year there, winning the Hockey East Coach of the Year (Bob Kullen Coach of the Year Award). The team never did particularly amazing in the next seven years but the team became more respectable and seemed to have a very good reputation in the Hockey East (as far as I can tell, people seemed pissed that he was fired).

And (allegedly) a booster got him fired (allegedly it was Richard Gallant of USPHL hockey who gave 2m to Merrimack and has a deal that lets the school use his juniors’ team rink). Merrimack’s new coach has done very poorly so the busy body booster didn’t do them any favors. (Thanks to Quest I now know more then I ever wanted to about the Merrimack hockey program.)

Dennehy’s first season on Bing was nondescript, the team had the same exact win % as the year before under Rick Kowalsky. The 2019-20 season was fantastic, it had a rough start but the team completely turned around and was a juggernaut by the end, they would have rolled into the playoffs and made some noise. I don’t particularly care about the COVID pseudo-season record and was impressed by the 2019-20 season so I’m perfectly fine with Dennehy being the coach. I can’t promise you he’ll be amazing or anything though. He’s 53, so he’s not terribly old either.

 

[Quest for Stanley]

“Built up the program in his 13 years there”

He led Merrimack to 11 losing seasons. His last 6 we’re losing seasons. No coach survives that record.

 

[Quest for Stanley]

“without acknowledging the circumstances”

The circumstances: Merrimack is an easy sell to high end prospects. Competes in Hockey East- the preferred D1 path to the NHL for many high end prospects. Is located in high end, beautiful and safe North Andover Massachusetts located 30 minutes away from the great City of Boston. A die hard fan base including a 2 million dollar donor. Merrimack offers high quality education well respected by employers throughout Massachusetts and beyond. It wasn’t the College or North Andover that caused high end prospects to select other schools. High end prospects want to play for Winners.

 

[Quest for Stanley]

“without acknowledging the circumstances”

The circumstances: Merrimack is an easy sell to high end prospects. Competes in Hockey East- the preferred conference for most high end prospects path to the NHL. Is located in high end, beautiful and safe North Andover Massachusetts. Offers a high quality education.

 

[Guttersniped]

He literally saved the D1 program.

Merrimack hockey was nearly left for dead 10 years ago, just before Mark Dennehy was hired as head coach. Now 10 years later, Dennehy and a few of his former players took the time to reflect on what it took to keep it alive …

Two weeks ago, a group of Merrimack hockey alumni shuffled into Merrimack’s Lawler Rink on a Sunday morning for the annual alumni game. For many in the group, Lawler Rink looks vastly different now than when they played.
There are seats, for example, those old wooden bleachers are long gone. More importantly, though, there are people in those seats. The lobby out front didn’t exist when most of these former players were donning the blue and gold and the current locker room merely existed in head coach Mark Dennehy’s mind.

That’s the present.

In the past, the story of Merrimack hockey was almost a sad one. In Mark Dennehy’s 10 full seasons as head coach, the program has gone from being on death’s door to at one point in 2011, being within a couple of goals of winning a Hockey East championship.
Looking Back

Back in 2005, the Warriors were coming off a one-win season in Hockey East. There were rumors online as well as reports in The Eagle Tribune and The Boston Globe that there was a player mutiny, and the team had asked former head coach Chris Serino to step down.

For several weeks in the spring of 2005, the program was in chaos. While in Naples during the coach’s convention, it leaked to several outlets that Merrimack was entertaining the idea of leaving Hockey East. Meanwhile, back in North Andover, players were left in the dark.

Serino ultimately resigned, taking the job as head coach and athletic director at Malden Catholic, and the college hired a relatively unknown assistant coach from UMass to take over the program instead of other rumored finalists, which included then Boston College assistant and North Andover native, Mike Cavanaugh, who is now the head coach at UConn.

Dennehy had just come off a good run with the Minutemen, helping recruit a team that landed in the Hockey East finals in 2004. But people around the program wanted some homegrown blood, and many alumni were upset the college didn’t give a chance to Bobby Jay.

Of course, this wasn’t Dennehy’s fault.

Also, just months before he was hired, Merrimack was rumored to be on the verge of leaving Hockey East, and many close to the program — and even outsiders in the media — wondered how viable Merrimack’s program was not only in that league, but remaining Division I altogether.

Back From The Dead: Merrimack Hockey Remains Risen 10 Years After Turmoil

His first couple of seasons he was fighting to keeping the D1 program, so yes, he didn’t have a lot of resources. And it’s a very small school, competing in a very difficult DI conference.

Merrimack only has ~4450 full-time students. 2m isn’t very much but the reason a small time booster like that might have pull is Merrimack only has 54m endowment, which is very small. Tuition is 40k.

The other small school in Men’s Hockey East, Providence College has ~4100 full-time students. but it has a 234m endowment and tuition is 50k.

Providence spends 84.8m on salaries while Merrimack spends 52.8m because they have more money. That’s what I mean about having less resources, particularly when the program was in dire straits.

In contrast Boston College has ~13k full-time students, a 2.58 billion endowment and 56k tuition. BC spends 383m on salaries. (Including a lot on Coach Jerry York’s salary.)

Merrimack College | Data USA

Providence College | Data USA

Boston College | Data USA

Again, this has to be more that anyone, myself included, wanted to know about Merrimack College. I just want people to know that Dennehy is respected for saving the program, building it up to respectability, having some success there and he’s very well liked and respected among former players and coaches.

Some people were probably frustrated that he didn’t build on the minor success and get further so he was fired but the new coaches record is (21-57-8), which is a .291 win percentage, and Scott Borek didn’t inherit the mess Dennehy did. Merrimack is likely a perennial underdog.

And none of this particularly matters? Dennehy earned a large benefit of the doubt from me for the 2019-20 season. Anyone being nostalgic for Kowalsky, who coached our AHL affiliate since 2010-11, is wild to me, I’m not sure how that’s even possible. If Dennehy disappoints then they can just hire a new head coach. It’s not a big deal.

Maybe there’s an internal replacement in the future. Ryan Parent won KIJHL Coach of the Year in 2018 after taking the juniors team he co-owns, Revelstroke Grizzlies, to the Finals. We snapped up the Kootenay International Juniors Hockey League’s hottest coach to become an assistant at Bing. (His pro hockey career might also be a reason he was hired since they mentioned that in the press release and not the incredible award, but still.)

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]

GOALTENDERS
Alex Sakellaropoulos

DEFENSEMEN
Charlie Curti
Alex Jaeckle
Tommy Parran
Steven Ruggiero
Blake Thompson

FORWARDS
Ryan Smith
Matt Salhany
Mike Szmatula
Ryan Walker
Nick Hutchison
Pete MacArthur
Alex Carrier
Josh French
Nick Rivera
John Edwardh
Samuel Laberge

 

[Guttersniped]

Found perhaps the 2nd best Canadian juniors team name, from SJHL (Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League).

The Melville Millionaires

The best being the short-lived Lewiston MAINEiacs from the QMJHL.

 

[My3Sons]

Found perhaps the 2nd best Canadian juniors team name, from SJHL (Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League).

The Melville Millionaires
View attachment 450894

The best being the short-lived Lewiston MAINEiacs from the QMJHL.

View attachment 450895

My favorite minor league hockey team name was the Macon Whoopies. Maybe the 1980s they existed.

 

[Tao Jersey Jones]