Criscuolo's Hat Trick Powers Utica Comets Past Laval 5-2

Kyle Criscuolo had played more than 600 professional games across the AHL and NHL, logged 120-plus college games at Harvard, and built a career-long reputation as a reliable center and offensive weapon. After all that, Friday night in Utica was the first time he'd ever recorded a professional hat trick.

The 33-year-old made sure it counted. Criscuolo scored in each period as the Comets rallied from a 2-1 deficit to beat the North Division-leading Laval Rocket 5-2, with Utica wearing green specialty jerseys for their St. Patrick's Day game on March 13.

Criscuolo opened the scoring at 7:45 of the first when Ethan Edwards pinched to keep the play alive in the left corner of the offensive zone and Brian Halonen slipped a backhand pass to Criscuolo in front, who snapped one inside the far post glove-side on Laval netminder Kaapo Kahkonen. It was his 10th goal of the year. The lead didn't last. Laval grabbed a 2-1 advantage after two Comets miscues led to goals less than four minutes apart in the first, including Jared Davidson stealing the puck behind the Comets' net and finding Filip Mesar in the low slot, who fired one off the near post and past Nico Daws at 13:14 for his eighth of the season.

The second period belonged to near-misses on both ends. Laval killed a carryover Utica power play to open the frame, Kahkonen denied Halonen on a clean breakaway, and Davidson rang a shot off the post on the stick side of Daws that nearly made it 3-1. Instead, Austin Strand corralled a loose puck in the left corner of the Laval zone late in the period, skated behind the net and fed Criscuolo, who snuck one inside the near post at 18:13 for his 11th goal of the year. Halonen picked up the secondary assist, giving him two helpers on the night.

Criscuolo completed the hat trick 1:50 into the third. Defenseman Colton White broke into the zone on a give-and-go and his initial shot from the right side was stopped; Brian Halonen and Jonathan Gruden swarmed the net on the rebound before Criscuolo tapped it past a sprawling Kahkonen. After the goal, Criscuolo threw his arms wide in celebration.

Utica closed it out methodically from there. Matyas Melovsky scored a power-play goal three seconds into the man advantage with 8:12 remaining to put the game away, and Angus Crookshank added an empty-netter late to set the final score.

As the Rome Sentinel noted, chalk it up to Friday the 13th, or the luck of the Irish. Either way, Criscuolo's four-goal run, his two-goal second-and-third period surge as part of Utica's decisive stretch, gave the Comets their most complete result of the penultimate regular-season meeting between these two teams. It was the third consecutive game in the season series played in Utica, and for the second straight time, the Comets scored first against a Laval team that had led the AHL in getting on the board first. On this night, they did considerably more than that.