Clarke happy to be on ice with B-Devils in AHL
NEWARK >> In what’s been a strange season for everyone, the Binghamton Devils are only a few days removed from getting through what’s been their strangest week.
On March 10, their game against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at the RWJ Barnabas Health Hockey House — also known as the New Jersey Devils practice rink — in Newark was suspended after just one period due to COVID-19 protocols, which was likely some form a positive result that came back during the game.
Their subsequent two games were postponed, and then their scheduled return exactly one week later on the 17th was postponed just hours before game time due to COVID-19 protocols affecting the Phantoms, meaning the B-Devils weren’t able to get back on the ice for game action until Friday night’s wild, 6-5 win over the Hershey Bears.
How happy were they to finally get back out there?
“Very happy, that’s the short answer to that,” BDevils coach Mark Dennehy said prior to the game.
“It’s harder on the players. My staff and I are trying to get ourselves mentally prepared for game time, but they have to do both; they have to mentally focused and they also have to try to get themselves to a point physically where they’re peaking at the right time of day. These are good tests for our young guys. There’s a saying that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and this type of adversity is something that you can really benefit from when you get to the other side of it.”
That’s certainly true for Graeme Clarke, who seems to be finding his footing after a slow start to his American Hockey League career. The 19-year-old, who was the Devils third-round pick in 2019, went without a point in his first four games with Binghamton, but has turned it on ever since signing his entry-level contract with the big club. Including the suspended game, Clarke had a fourgame point-scoring streak heading into Sunday’s road game in Hershey, including goals in three of those contests.
For Clarke, who started his season on loan to Nove Zamky Mikron HC in Slovakia, learning to adjust on the fly early on in such a unique year has seemed to pay dividends now.
“It’s a little similar to how my summer was with training,” he said. “I was in Ottawa at home in Canada, and for a couple weeks, there would be ice available and you’d be doing skates and workouts, and then COVID numbers would go up, things would get shut down, and the ice wouldn’t be available, so you had to find other stuff to do. It could be home workouts, shooting pucks at home, stuff like that. There’s been a lot of off and on, so just going with the flow and trying to navigate how this crazy thing is going to work out and just trying to get a season in and salvage everything you can, it’s been really unique. Hopefully, it’s just once in a lifetime, and after this year, we can get more normal.”
For Clarke, he’s somehow managed to maintain his momentum from the past few weeks despite all of the interruptions, showing impressive maturity in his approach while doing so.
“It’s just how it is,” he said. “You can’t think like, ‘I was on a roll, that sucks that we stopped.’ You just have to try to keep it going whenever you do start up. Obviously, there’s a million excuses everyone can make up for this season and how it’s going, but at the same time, when there’s a game, there’s a game, so you’ve just got to make it happen when the chance is available. I think that’s everyone’s mindset.”