* Drew Daniels is a warrior. Yeah, he screwed up and gave up Cincy's third goal Saturday night, but he was a beast the entire game and might have been Fort Wayne's best player on the ice. He busted his tail for 60 minutes and made a great play on the tying goal that will never show up on the stat sheet to clear the way for Mike Embach's shot. Then he forced the penalty on Cincy in overtime that led to the game-winning power-play goal. Two big-time plays that often go unnoticed. He was also great at moving in from the point to create offense when Cincy was packing it in deep. Several times he made solid moves to get around defending forwards and create chances.
* Watching them struggle to score points out why they need Paul Crowder back. He's such a great play-making center who helps everyone else on the ice offensively and he wins faceoffs. He makes everyone on the ice with him 20 percent better with his passing and vision of the ice.
* The forwards have done a fantastic job this week at not taking so many penalties in the offensive zone. The Komets had only one power play against Saturday night. Maybe they listened to Kaleigh Schrock's message last week. Whatever happened to change things, it's impressive to see.
* The defense has definitely tightened up with Michael Tam back in the lineup and the return of James Martin and Joey Leach from Lake Erie. Will Lacasse continues to impress me by the way he always makes the smart, easy play and rarely gets caught up ice.
* The Komets have been more physical of late, and I'm not just talking about being aggressive with hits but taking hits to make plays, too. Another Tam and Daniels specialty. They're doing a better job of getting to the front of the net on offense and controlling it on defense. That can always improve.
* You can see every opponent and the Komets are being much more aware defensively and offense is only coming consistently from waiting for opponents to make mistakes to capitalize on. Cincy played extremely well Saturday night and did a great job of getting five guys below the dots defensively to close things off. Can't imagine the Cyclones can play any harder or better than they did last night. The penalties to Pacan, Vigier and Combs killed them.
* The Komets are tightening everything up, and they are starting to do a better job on their PK. The PP has also been very good the last month.
* Pat Nagle is getting sharper by the period. He looks more relaxed and confident in goal, more sure of himself and he's doing a great job of placing his rebounds.
* Matt Lowry may not say much, but he is one nasty little snot to play against. I'm guessing the Komets got him because they hated playing against him so much.
* It will be very interesting to see what kind of checking line the Komets can put together, really for the first time since they've been in the ECHL. Last night J.M. Rizk, Lowry and Kaleigh Schrock or CJ Severyn worked their tails off to contain Cincy's big line of Combs, Downing and Pacan. They were always a threat, but they really never got much going offensively. That will be a huge difference-maker for the Komets in the playoffs.
