Here's what Colin Chaulk had to say after the 3-1 loss to Evansville, in his return to the lineup:

"I could be better, that's for sure, but so could the team," said Chaulk, who was scoreless with one shot, three checks and victories on 9 of 12 face offs.

On the pressure he felt: "You're always going to feel pressure coming back when you've had success and the team's had success. If they were winning or losing, you don't want to be the guy to make it worse. Here we were undefeated in six and we lose when I come back. I wouldn't read too much into this. It was almost a no-win situation, unless you come out with two goals and two assists and the team wins 6-1."

Asked if he could tell, after a week of practice and one game, what's wrong with the Komets, Chaulk said: "I've seen some things (wrong). But it's going to take a little bit. There are some guys I haven't played with before. There are guys I've played against. We don't have a lot of time. ... I just need to play hard first, then get a voice."

Coach Al Sims had this to say: "Chaulk looked OK. It looked like Chaulk. I think he's out of shape. But it's been two weeks of the ice for him and it's not going to come back, especially from the Italian League to this league, there's a big difference and it's going to take him a while to get back to the game he wants to play."

Asked if he felt Chaulk was feeling pressure, Sims said: "We were undefeated in six games, so what kind of pressure would there have been on (Chaulk). There will be now that we're losing and he's come back. But, you know, I think we had taken the pressure off him by doing as well as we did the last two weeks. It will take him awhile to get up to speed and he'll get stronger each game."

On Saturday, the Komets go back to Dayton, and the Gems are peeved about some incidents in last weekend's 4-3 overtime victory by Fort Wayne.

In that game, Brandon Naurato suffered a knee injury on a Danko Mironovic hit. The Gems also asked the league to review -- with no punishment given for any of it -- a Mironovic hit on Brett Lutes and a Guy Dupuis alleged spear.

"We go out and play hockey," Sims said. "We can't be stupid and be in the penalty box all night. If they want to do that, chase us around, slashing or whatever they're going to do, I don't know. But we're going to go down and play hockey and hope our power play is better than it was (Friday going 1 for 6)."

• The Komets held a moment of silence for recently deceased former owner Colin Lister, though I wish they would make their moments of silence longer than eight seconds.
• Were it me, I would go after defenseman Jake Pence, a former Fort Wayne player, released this week by Evansville.