Comets Calder Cup Run: Utica looks to rebound after falling in quadruple overtime to the Oklahoma City Barons

Courtesy of the UticaComets.com

When it was all said and done with, the Utica Comets and Oklahoma City Barons engaged in the sixth-longest American Hockey League game in the 79-year history of the league.

Now updated three times in the last 12 days, list of the longest OT games in @TheAHL history: pic.twitter.com/ug1ai3WZa8

— AHL Communications (@AHLPR) May 8, 2015

Curtis Hamilton (son of Kelowna Rockets Owner Bruce Hamilton) scored sixteen seconds into the fourth overtime frame to give the Barons a 1-0 lead over the Comets in the best-of-seven series.

The sellout crowd of 3835 fans in attendance at the Utica Memorial Auditorium were occupied until quarter after midnight local time in a game that ended up spanning for five hours and fourteen minutes.

Game 1 matched the same amount of time the Comets and Barons  played in their two regular season matches.; the Barons and Comets split the season series 1-1.

Comets goaltender Jacob Markstrom was sensational posting 65 saves in over 120:00 minutes of action. Barons goalie Richard Bachman finished with 56 saves in the winning effort. Marsktrom set a record with the most amount of saves ever recorded in any playoff game at The Aud and set his own personal record save record, topping his 49 save output back on December 30, 2012

Great save by Marktstrom in OT! https://t.co/knk0jBACJJ

— Winthagame (@WinThaGame) May 8, 2015

The two teams combined for 124 shots total, with Oklahoma outshooting Utica 57-55.

Utica got on the board first at 17:10 of the first period when Kent Huskins (1-1-2) wisely skated in the slot and converted on a backhand feed from Darren Archibald (1-2-3). Huskins had 1 goal in 52 regular season games with the Comets and hadn't scored an AHL playoff goal in 9 years before he won a Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks.

Huskins goal! #BuiltForThis https://t.co/CwDqHdZxzT

— Winthagame (@WinThaGame) May 7, 2015

Oklahoma City would respond four minutes into the 2nd period as Matthew Ford connected with Kellen Jones at the Utica blueline. Jones was able to spring behind all the Comets defenders and went backhand forehand on Markstrom to give him his 2nd playoff tally.

Then the goaltenders took over.

Sven Baertschi continued his strong playoff performance with multiple glorious chances to put the Comets in the lead and end the game in overtime periods, but Richard Bachman would ultimately get the last laugh. Bachman ended up going 102:50 without letting in a goal after surrendering the Huskins goal in the first period. Markstrom went 96:03 of goalless play before Hamilton scored the sudden death winner. Bachman and Markstrom were perfect on five combined overtime power plays.

Bachman improved his save percentage to a dazzling .984 in four playoff games.

Baertschi with a glorious chance to put the comets up. https://t.co/850i9naW4j

— Winthagame (@WinThaGame) May 8, 2015

Baertschi almost ends it in OT https://t.co/YPE4SGy4SV

— Winthagame (@WinThaGame) May 8, 2015

Baertschi doing work setting up Ehrhart for a chance to finish it in triple OT https://t.co/4n0TgcZUvv

— Winthagame (@WinThaGame) May 8, 2015

The next goal didn't come until another full sixty minutes had passed, when Hamilton intercepted a bad clearing attempt by Brandon DeFazio and potted in the game winner 16 seconds into the fourth overtime period.

The Barons remained perfect in the playoffs improving their record to 4-0 and are now 3-0 in overtime games in the 2015 Calder Cup playoffs. The Comets may want to finish Game 2 in regulation as Oklahoma City set an AHL record with 14 regular season victories. This marked the fourth time in history that the Barons had beat Markstrom in a playoff overtime game.

Captain Cal O'Reilly told the Utica Observer-Dispatch that rest will be the biggest factor heading into tonight's Game 2 match.

"Sleep. Sleep is the biggest thing and doing what you need to do to get ready for tomorrow."

AHL Game #K-1 Oklahoma City 2 at  Utica 1 Utica Memorial Auditorium May 7, 2015

Three Stars: 1. OKC - R. Bachman 2. UTI - J. Markstrom 3. OKC - C. Hamilton

Game Start: 7:02 PM EDT Game End: 12:14 AM Game Length: 5:12 Attendance: 3835

SCORING 1 2 3 OT 2OT 3OT 4OT T Oklahoma City 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 Utica 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

SHOTS 1 2 3 OT 2OT 3OT 4OT T Oklahoma City 14 14 12 8 6 11 2 67 Utica 7 13 10 11 11 5 0 57

PP PIM PTS Oklahoma City 0 / 3 12 min / 6 inf 2 G + 3 A = 5 Pts Utica 0 / 5 8 min / 4 inf 1 G + 2 A = 3 Pts

V-H	#	Per	Team	Time	Goals	Assists	Type	On Ice (+/-)
0 - 1	1	1st	UTI	17:10	K. Huskins (1)	D. Archibald, B. DeFazio		V	3 14 17 29 37	H	14 24 25 29 44
1 - 1	2	2nd	OKC	4:13	K. Jones (2)	M. Ford, M. Marincin		V	11 15 20 28 36	H	2 3 9 16 28
2 - 1	3	4th OT	OKC	0:16	C. Hamilton (1)	J. Williams		V	3 10 12 19 29	H	2 3 14 24 47

OKLAHOMA CITY ROSTER No Name G A +/- Sh PIM G 31 L. Brossoit 0 0 0 0 0 G 32 R. Bachman 0 0 0 0 0 D 3 B. Davidson 0 0 0 3 4 D 6 D. Musil 0 0 0 3 2 C 7 J. Khaira 0 0 0 2 2 LW 8 B. Winchester 0 0 0 2 0 LW 10 C. Hamilton 1 0 +1 5 0 RW 11 M. Ford 0 1 +1 4 2 LW 12 R. Hamilton 0 0 +1 3 0 C 14 C. Stretch 0 0 -1 4 0 D 15 J. Oesterle 0 0 +1 3 2 RW 17 A. Miller 0 0 -1 8 0 D 18 D. Simpson 0 0 0 1 0 C 19 J. Williams 0 1 +1 2 0 C 20 C. Jones 0 0 +1 4 0 LW 27 M. Moroz 0 0 0 2 0 D 28 M. Marincin 0 1 +1 7 0 D 29 B. Hunt 0 0 0 5 0 LW 36 K. Jones 1 0 +1 5 0 LW 37 J. Winquist 0 0 -1 4 0 Team: Totals: 2 3 5 67 12 OKLAHOMA CITY GOALIES No Name Min SH SVS GA 32 R. Bachman (W) 120:16 57 56 1 Totals: 120:16 57 56 1

UTICA ROSTER No Name G A +/- Sh PIM G 30 J. Eriksson 0 0 0 0 0 G 33 J. Markstrom 0 0 0 0 0 D 2 T. Ehrhardt 0 0 -2 1 0 D 3 A. Biega 0 0 -2 3 0 D 6 B. Sanguinetti 0 0 0 3 0 C 8 A. Friesen 0 0 0 3 0 LW 9 H. Shinkaruk 0 0 -1 4 0 LW 10 B. Gaunce 0 0 0 6 0 C 14 M. Zalewski 0 0 0 1 0 C 16 C. O'Reilly 0 0 -1 2 0 RW 24 B. DeFazio 0 1 0 3 2 LW 25 D. Archibald 0 1 +1 0 0 D 26 F. Corrado 0 0 0 4 2 RW 28 A. Grenier 0 0 -1 5 0 D 29 K. Huskins 1 0 +1 6 0 RW 34 C. Bancks 0 0 0 3 0 C 36 W. Hamilton 0 0 0 3 2 D 44 A. Clendening 0 0 +1 1 2 LW 47 S. Baertschi 0 0 -1 5 0 LW 89 C. Conacher 0 0 0 4 0 Team: Totals: 1 2 -5 57 8 UTICA GOALIES No Name Min SH SVS GA 33 J. Markstrom (L) 120:16 67 65 2 Totals: 120:16 67 65 2

PENALTIES P T Player M Offense Time 1st V J. Oesterle 2.00 Delay of game 10:52 2nd H F. Corrado 2.00 Cross-checking 0:59 2nd V D. Musil 2.00 Elbowing 11:12 3rd V B. Davidson 2.00 Roughing 6:39 3rd H B. DeFazio 2.00 Roughing 6:39 OT H A. Clendening 2.00 Interference 6:13 2nd OT V J. Khaira 2.00 Delay of game - Faceoff violation (76.4) 6:10 2nd OT V M. Ford 2.00 Hooking 17:14 3rd OT V B. Davidson 2.00 High-sticking 9:22 3rd OT H W. Hamilton 2.00 Tripping 11:56

The Comets will likely be without the services of Darren Archibald for Game 2. Archibald left the game in the second period with a lower-body injury and did not return. Alex Grenier didn't play the overtime period with cramping issues.

On @TSN1040 - @brendanmburke says Virtanen, Jensen, Labate and McCann are possible options in this round. #canucks

— Ryan Biech (@ryanbiech) May 8, 2015

It's unlikely that Virtanen, McCann or LaBate will draw into Archibald's spot for Game 2. Nicklas Jensen is destined to find his way back into the Comets lineup after being a healthy scratch in Game 1. Travis Green told Brendan Burke in an intermission interview that he wants to see more of Virtanen and McCann in practice first before he even considers throwing them into the fray of the American League playoffs. Green also mentioned that it wouldn't be fair to veterans whom worked their tails off to get the Comets to where they are.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is not photoshopped. This gives you an idea how long last night’s 4OT <a href="https://twitter.com/UticaComets">@UticaComets</a> game went on. <a href="http://t.co/ZrM7P3dveV">pic.twitter.com/ZrM7P3dveV</a></p>&mdash; Canucks Misconduct (@nucksmisconduct) <a href="https://twitter.com/nucksmisconduct/status/596730326577258496">May 8, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>