The AHL affiliate of the New Jersey Devils, the Utica Comets, had an interesting season. The Comets began their 2024-25 campaign with 13 straights losses, culminating in the firing of their head coach, Kevin Dineen, after the first nine. Ryan Parent, who has been with the organization since 2018, took over as interim head coach.

Following the 13 straight losses to begin the season, the Comets ended their season 31-23-5. Despite the strong ending, the slow start was too much to overcome as the Comets overall record finished at 31-33-6-2, which ranked last in the North Division, 11 points back from a playoff spot. Utica finished 26th overall in the AHL.

Statistical Recap

Offense

It was a slog for the Comets offensively. Their 196 goals scored was the third-fewest in the league. Meanwhile, their 17.4% power play success rate ranked 23rd. Overall, the 26.69 shots per game they averaged also ranked 30th in the league.

Their offensive struggles are punctuated by the fact the team’s leading scorer only had 44 points. That leading point-getter was the team’s captain, Ryan Schmelzer. Schmelzer’s 44 points was the second most of his seven season career. His career high was set last season when he had 52 points in 72 games.

The skaters that rounded out the Comets top five scorers were Brian Halonen (40 points), Nolan Foote (39 points), Xavier Parent (36 points), and Mike Hardman (35 points). Halonen’s 27 goals on the season not only led the Comets, but were the 13th-most in the league. The 26-year-old has now scored 66 goals across 166 career AHL games; a 33 goal pace over an 82 game schedule.

Meanwhile, Foote’s 39 point output, across 53 games, was the highest thus far throughout his AHL career. He also led the Comets in points per game (0.74). Parent’s scoring rate was down slightly year-over-year. Lastly, the 26-year-old Hardman had his second-most efficient scoring season of his AHL career.

The other most notable forward performance was out of Nathan Légaré, who had 17 points in 69 games to go along with a team-high 102 penalty minutes. The 24-year-old Légaré’s previous career high was eight goals in 2022-23. He shattered that with 17 this season, to go along with a career-high 25 points (previous high was 19). Légaré was a third-round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins back in 2019. He now has 248 career AHL games under his belt with 269 penalty minutes.

On the back end, Topis Vilen paced Comets defensemen with 24 points in 58 games. He led all Utica skaters with 23 assists. Simon Nemec, who only played in 34 games with the Comets, was second on the team in points per game (0.68). Veteran AHL defenseman, Colton White, who returned to the Devils’ system after a few seasons away, was second among Comets defensemen with 21 points in 61 games. White spent the last two seasons within the Anaheim Ducks’ organization and now has played 315 AHL games and 84 in the NHL.

Defense, Goaltending

The Comets performed much better on defense than they did on offense. They allowed the 20th-fewest goals in the AHL this season. This despite a penalty kill that was the fifth-worst in the league. The 28.71 shots per game Utica allowed was the 17th-fewest in the league. As a team, the Comets owned a 0.893 save percentage, which ranked 21st in the AHL.

Among Utica defenseman Seamus Casey, Nemec, and Santeri Hatakka were the only Comets defensemen, with more than 30 games played, to have a goals-for percentage (GF%) at 50.00 or above at five-on-five. Dmitry Osipov, Tory Dello, and Austin Strand ranked in the bottom three on the team, among defenseman with at least 14 games played, at five-on-five.

At all strengths, Casey, Nemec, and Vilen are the only three who had GF% above 50.00. Osipov, Dello, and White were the bottom three on the team with a GF% of 40.4, 41.4, and 42.0, respectively.

White and Strand did by far the most work among Comets defenseman on the penalty kill. Unfortunately for White, the 27 opposition power play goals he was on the ice for was the 11th-most in the league.

For those unfamiliar, all three of Osipov, Dello, and Strand were acquired by the Comets midseason. Osipov was acquired from the Hershey Bears in exchange for forward Jace Isley (13 points in 41 ECHL games following the trade) and played 39 games for the Comets this season. He has a total of 231 AHL games and 123 ECHL games played in his career. Dello was from the Detroit Red Wings organization. The 28-year-old played his college hockey at Notre Dame and has 229 career AHL games played. Lastly, Strand, also 28 years old, has 298 AHL and 26 career NHL games played. Both Dello and Strand were acquired in exchange for future considerations.

In net, the Comets had three different goalies appear for them. Leading the way was Isaac Poulter, who posted a 0.898 save percentage and a 16-13-6 record. Nico Daws got 34 starts, and posted a 0.893 save percentage. Lastly, Jeremy Brodeur only played in five games, but was 4-0 with a 0.923 save percentage.

Advanced Metrics

Unfortunately, there is not a ton of advanced statistics available to the public when it comes to the AHL. However, there is one public resource, that being AHL Tracker. AHL Tracker has a metric they refer to as game score (GS). This can be further broken down to game score per game (GS/G).

The top three Comets in GS/G were Halonen, Foote, and Hardman. Defensively, Nemec, Casey, and Vilen were the top three on the back end. Among the worst GS/G marks on the team were Hatakka, Samuel Laberge, and Osipov.

Specifically, among aged 24 or younger forwards in the AHL this season, Foote ranked 42nd among 213 to play at least 25 games. Among 26-years-old or younger forwards, Halonen ranked 58th among 312 qualified in GS/G. Lastly, among 21-years-old or younger defensemen, Nemec and Casey ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, among 29 qualified. If you extend that out to ages 26 and under, they rank 12th and 13th, respectively, among 156 qualified in GS/G.

Wrap Up

All in all it was a disappointing season for the Devils’ AHL affiliate. This marks the second straight season Utica has missed the playoffs. Regardless, it was good to see a strong ending to the season, as the 31-23-5 stretch to end the year indicates.

Other high points in the Comets’ season came at the end of the year. As is customary in the AHL, towards the back half of the season, several debuts are made. That was the case for the Comets as Shane Lachance, Cam Squires, and Ethan Edwards all got looks from the team to end the season.

Lachance posted two points, including his first professional goal, in two games. The forward, who captained Boston University to a runner-up finish in the NCAA title game, was acquired as a result of the Devils facilitating a trade between Boston and Edmonton. The 6-foot-5 Lachance had 30 points in 40 games this season and 57 across two seasons in the NCAA.

Squires was a fourth-round pick of the Devils in 2023. He finished up his QMJHL career with Cape Brenton this season, tallying 75 points in 58 games. His 51 assists was the seventh-most in the league. Squires had four points in the three AHL games to end the season.

Lastly, Edwards finished up his career at the University of Michigan. At Michigan, the former teammate of Luke Hughes played 130 career games posting 56 points. He played in 10 games to end the season with the Comets, racking up three assists and a plus-eight rating.

The AHL is all about developing players that will hopefully one day contribute to the big club. The Comets certainly endured a transition year, where a lot of the organization’s top prospects were playing elsewhere. The end of the season finally saw some of the organization’s exciting prospects join the team, and that trend should continue into next season where hopefully Utica can carry over that strong ending to a very tough beginning of the year.