It seems that the Komets have either been at one extreme or the other this season.
Are they the team that鈥檚 twice won seven of eight games? Or are they the team that got hammered 9-2 by the Kalamazoo Wings in October and lost four straight a couple weeks ago? Are they the team that throttled the rival Toledo Walleye 5-1 in November or the one that lost back-to-back games to Toledo, including a 3-0 shutout, this month?
The Komets played good hockey last weekend 鈥 winning 3-2 in overtime and 5-3 in regulation at the Tulsa Oilers and then 3-0 at the Wichita Thunder 鈥 and they鈥檇 like to prove that any ugly games this season have been anomalies.
Put simply, they want to be more consistent in playing winning hockey.
鈥淥ne hundred percent. We want to be a championship team and we keep talking about that (point),鈥 defenseman Cameron Supryka said. 鈥淲e feel like a championship team, but we鈥檝e got to be consistent. You can鈥檛 go on losing streaks in the playoffs, otherwise your season is over. I think we鈥檙e just learning.鈥
The Komets have a big shot tonight to pull back into the race for the Central Division title. They face the Walleye at 7:30 p.m. at Memorial Coliseum.
Toledo (24-8-4), which hasn鈥檛 played since Jan. 10, has won 10 of its last 13 games and has a nine-point lead over third-place Fort Wayne. However, the Komets have played two fewer games than the Walleye and one fewer than the Iowa Heartlanders (20-11-4), who have one more point than Fort Wayne.
The last time the Komets and Walleye met, Jan. 4 at the Huntington Center in Toledo, Carter Gylander stopped all 26 shots he faced. It was the first time in 364 days the Komets had been held scoreless 鈥 also against Toledo.
The Komets are now the team coming in off a shutout victory, though, as Connor Ungar stopped all 17 shots he faced in Sunday鈥檚 victory at Wichita鈥檚 Intrust Bank Arena.
鈥淚t was a good lockdown defensive effort to find a way to close out the weekend,鈥 said coach Jesse Kallechy, whose Komets have allowed more than three goals only twice in the last 16 games.
The offense has been more of an issue, but the returns last week of Ethan Keppen from an American Hockey League call-up and Brannon McManus and Alex Swetlikoff from injuries created an evident spark 鈥 especially Saturday, when Swetlikoff had two goals and two assists in a rare game at Tulsa. The Komets also signed Kirill Tyutyayev, an offensively charged forward who played for Toledo from 2022 to 2024, on Wednesday and he could make his Fort Wayne debut tonight.
On Saturday, the Komets face another unfamiliar opponent 鈥 the Maine Mariners (14-16-3) 鈥 and it鈥檒l be the Komets鈥 annual Martin Luther King Jr. Night. The Komets will wear special MLK jerseys that will be auctioned off to benefit a nonprofit, Healthier Moms and Babies.
It鈥檒l be the first-ever meeting between the Komets and the Mariners, who joined the ECHL in 2018.
And it鈥檒l be a chance for the Komets to build on the momentum of last weekend. They exhibited a killer instinct in the third period of Sunday鈥檚 game 鈥 already up 3-0, the Komets outshot Wichita 14-1 to close the game 鈥 and they鈥檇 like to continue that by building leads and going for the jugular.
鈥淚 thought we did a good job of trying to play a playoff-style third period,鈥 Supryka said, 鈥渁nd I thought we did a good job of not giving up too many Grade A chances on Ungar.鈥
