Is the number of drafted prospects on the Comets a negative commentary on the Devils' amateur scouting or is this fairly common across the AHL?
It's a bit of both, but there are many teams that are loaded with prospects and players who may have lost their prospect promises, but are still products of that team's drafting.
Comets opened up at home vs the Syracuse Crunch and were shut out 5-0. The Crunch had 8 Tampa draft selections on the roster. Syracuse is always well taken care of by the Lightning. When the home grown numbers are down they do their best to bring in quality players with former draft selections from other NHL teams and historically quality AHL players. They were fast, physical, and skilled up and down the roster.
The Comets played the Rochester Americans in the 2nd game of this season. 10 forwards on their roster were Buffalo draft picks and one was an Edmonton 5th rounder acquired by Buffalo in a trade and 3 of the D were also Buffalo draft selections. They were fast, aggressive, and passed well. Comets were unable to muster much of anything as they couldn't skate with them and their passing was horrid. Shots they did get were 1 and done and not verydangerous. SOG 40-20 and the Comets had only 2 in the 1st. 4-1 Rochester.
1 goal in the 1st 2 games.
The Belleville Senators had 10 Ottawa draft selections. The problem in this game was that the Sens skated the Comets out of the building. Comets manged 5 shots in the 1st and 6 in the 2nd. Ottawa built a 5-2 lead in the 3rd and the coach tried to get them to shut it down. The Comets got 2 PP goals and made it 5-4. Coach changed his mind and let them loose. In a game the Comets only needed 1 goal to tie it up, their effort to kick it up a couple notches and push for that goal spent the better part of the last 5 minutes trying to survive in their own zone as the Sens played the same way they played in the 1st and the Comets could not compete.
Finally, on Sunday the Comets were manhandled by the skill set and the skating of the Marlies. Outshot 34-17, they were actually embarrassed 4-0. Even more than Syracuse the Marlies stack their AHL rosters with outside talent and bring in a few Europeans every season. There were 9 Maple Leaf selections on the roster.
After looking like they could score some goals on Saturday, they went right out the next day and were shut out again.
Comets 0-4, dead last in the North Division and the only team of the 7 without a win.
It's not the number of Jersey draft selections on the roster that is the problem, but a combination of the Jersey forwards who are there are not that talented and the outsiders NJ has provided proved last season that they had their problems and the newbies joining them have not impressed either. The major flaw of this roster is the lack of speed and coupled with weak puck skills they are at a major disadvantage the second the puck is dropped. The best talent is in the D-corps with Misyul and Vilen (yet to play a game). Casey will help, but his problems in NJ were in his own end. DeSimone is not a bad player either. Diotte and MacKinnon are struggling big time and Welinski plain and simple can't handle the speed. van de Leest cannot compete.
The D's problem is the forwards lack of good defensive zone play and the fact that it's like every rush comes in with speed and the backcheckers don't get the odd man or two while the defenders are trying to cope with what is coming at them shift after shift and it turns into multiple high level scoring chances on every shift. There always seems to be one guy totally unchecked who is available to wire shots at the keeper who has to be moving to get to where the shot is coming from and rebounds seem to always belong to the enemy.
At the moment it appears this is not a good group of forwards and the end result is not easy to watch.