Getting to Know Gabe: Meet Comets' Forward, Gabe Klassen
Aug 10, 2026Utica, NY – In the latest edition of the Comets’ summer FaceTime series, we spoke with newly signed forward, Gabe Klassen.
After a long, grueling season, many professional hockey players return home, and that is no different for Klassen who has been spending the summer in the province of Saskatchewan. His hometown of Prince Albert lies about 320 miles southeast of Edmonton, the closest major city and home to the team he cheered for as a kid, the Edmonton Oilers.
Growing up, Klassen played AA and AAA hockey in Prince Albert before heading south of the border for juniors. He joined the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks about midway through the 2019-20 season and then spent the next four full seasons in Portland, the last two of which he served as captain. His final season was a standout, leading the team with 106 points (35g, 71a), earning him a WHL First All-Star Team nomination for the second straight year.
The 23-year-old is undrafted and is coming off his second professional season, having spent both years in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ system. Klassen spent the majority of his rookie season with the Wheeling Nailers (ECHL) and the entirety of this past season with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (AHL), where he finished fourth on the team with 17 goals and seventh in points with 36. “Getting a chance to play pro hockey after junior was the goal, so getting the opportunity there and being able to work my way up the ranks made it a fun two seasons,” Klassen stated.
In addition to getting the opportunity to play at the AHL level, he enjoyed a lengthy playoff push with the Penguins which took them all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals, losing to the Toronto Marlies, the eventual Calder Cup Champions, in six games. When asked about being a part of the team’s deep run, Klassen commented, “It was awesome. Playoff hockey is always the best time of the year, and it really lived up to that. It was a lot of fun showing up to the rink every night and trying to go as far as we could. Obviously, we fell short, but it was a great experience.”
This summer, Klassen has been stationed in Saskatoon, about an hour and a half south of Prince Albert, training alongside the same group of guys whom he has spent the last several summers with. Aside from the hours he puts in at the gym and on the ice, Klassen loves to golf and looks forward to checking out some of the local courses when he arrives to Utica this fall.
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