Comets Shutout by Flames

by Mark Caswell, Jr.

Feb 27, 2015

It only took the Adirondack Flames 10 tries to finally defeat the Utica Comets 4-0 at The Utica Memorial Auditorium on Friday evening. The Comets record over the Flames sits at 9-1.

Unlucky bounces and a plenty of saves happen to be the story of the game as Brad Thiessen blocked everything the Comets fired at him. Thiessen, who has only played against Utica two times prior to tonight stopped 30 shots for his second shutout of the season.

After a first period riddled with fights, no goals were scored until the teams hit the ice for the second period. The Flames found two goals within the first six minutes, one of which came off of a rebound from Ken Agostino. Once the puck was ready for the taking, Bryce Van Brabant sniped the puck past Joacim Eriksson’s glove hand to take the early one-goal lead at 1:56. Sena Acolatse was credited with the secondary assist.

At 6:06 the Flames found their second goal of the game after both Brandon DeFazio and Mike Zalewski slid into the crease to try and keep the fervent puck out of the net. With Eriksson diving to cover-up the puck, it was poked loose and knocked out of the air by John Ramage to make it 2-0. Turner Elson and Van Brabant both received assists on the play.

The Flames continued their dominance of the Comets after Bobby Sanguinetti and Dustin Jeffrey took penalties at the end of the second, which left them with a 5-on-3 penalty kill for 1:23. Adirondack took care of business on their end after Mark Cundari buried a slapshot from the point just 30 seconds later to strengthen their lead to three.

It didn’t end there for the Flames as they capitalized on the power play once more after a high-sticking call on Nicklas Jensen at 3:30. With 18 seconds left on the power play, Drew Shore netted a rebound that came off of a shot from Dustin Stevenson. Brian McGratten took credit for the secondary assist on the Flames second power-play goal and fourth of the game.

There were a combined total of 78 penalty minutes taken, which included three fights. The Comets weren’t able to capitalize on the seven power-play chances awarded to them over the course of the night.

The Comets will head to Syracuse, N.Y. tomorrow night to take on the Syracuse Crunch at the Oncenter War Memorial Arena for the fourth time this season.