On Monday the Syracuse Crunch re-assigned two players to the Kalamazoo Wings. With a bit of a log jam in upstate New York, the Crunch and Lightning are looking to Kalamazoo for some playing time for a couple of their depth players.
Adam Comrie is a former 3rd round pick of the Florida Panthers. The 26-year-old defenseman has 125 games of experience in the ECHL having played for Reading and Cincinnati in his previous stints. The big (6’4” 220lb) blue liner likes to jump in the offense having tallied 168 points in 321 games between the AHL and ECHL
Brian Hart was drafted by the Lightning in the 2nd round of the 2012 draft. He appeared in 25 games for the Syracuse Crunch and 36 games for the ECHL’s Greenville Swamp Rabbits last season after signing an entry-level deal with the Lightning following his junior year at Harvard. Hart won’t set any scoring records, but he is developing into a two-way forward.
These two moves are the first under the new affiliation agreement between the Crunch and the K-Wings and is a perfect example of why organizations like to have these arrangements. Hart and Comrie will now be able to play on a regular basis for a team that shares a similar philosophy. If the organization didn’t have Kalamazoo they could probably have found a spot for the players in the ECHL, but it might have been with different teams which just makes things more complicated.
Neither played appeared in the Crunch’s season opening back-to-back series against the Rochester Americans. The K-Wings next game is their home opener on Friday the 21st against the Fort Wayne Comets.
