When forward Ture Linden scored late in the third period Sunday for his second goal of the game, and 25th of the season, it sent the Komets to a crucial 4-3 victory over the Indy Fuel at Memorial Coliseum. And it put Linden squarely in the conversation for ECHL Rookie of the Year honors.

About the only person not surprised by his production this season is Linden himself.

“I just believe in myself and I set a high standard,” said Linden, who’s one goal back of the Rapid City’s Rush’s Blake Bennett for the ECHL rookie lead. The Newfoundland Growlers’ Tate Singleton also has 25 goals and the South Carolina Stingrays’ Austin Magera has 22.

But Linden’s value has gone beyond his ability to put the puck in the net – he’s one of the ECHL’s most successful players on faceoffs and has been formidable on special teams – and he has a chance of becoming the first Fort Wayne player to win a league-wide Rookie of the Year award since Luciano Aquino in the International Hockey League in 2008.

To think, the Komets weren’t entirely sure what Linden’s capabilities were when he arrived at the Coliseum last fall.

To understand that story, you’ve got to understand that Jesse Kallechy wasn’t hired as the Komets’ head coach until June 21, after he’d helped the Florida Everblades to the Kelly Cup as an assistant coach, and Kallechy didn’t really get deep into recruiting until July. By that point, many of the prominent players coming out of junior or college hockey had been signed.

Linden, meanwhile, hadn’t yet found a contract in American Hockey League, despite a productive 2022-23 season at Penn State, during which he had 11 goals and 29 points in 39 games, after he’d skated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 2018 to 2022. Linden did get in one AHL game late last season with the Ontario Reign.

The AHL’s Bakersfield Condors – like the Komets, an affiliate of the Edmonton Oilers – held off on signing players to two-way contracts last summer until Fort Wayne had a coach in place, and Linden was one of the players Kallechy eventually recommended, even though Kallechy wasn’t yet totally familiar with what Linden could do on the ice.

“We were looking for anybody at that point who could be a high-end player,” Kallechy said. “When (Bakersfield) signed him, we didn’t know what we were getting. We knew he’d be a good player. But if I’m being honest, there’s no way I thought he’d do this.”

Linden leads the Komets in goals, power-play goals (10) and short-handed goals (three), and his 54 points are second only to all-star Jack Dugan’s 68. Among league rookies, Linden is fourth in points behind league-leading Kansas City’s Max Andreev’s 61, Magera’s 58 and Kansas City’s Cade Borchardt’s 57.

And then there’s what Linden does on faceoffs: He’s taken 1,148 of them, third most among all ECHL players, and he’s won 60.3% of them, the highest percentage of anyone with more than 420 faceoffs according to Hudl InStat.

“I have pretty high expectations for myself,” said Linden, 26, who hails from Great Falls, Virginia. “I want to get to the next level, and I believe I can play at the next level, so I’m just trying to prove that each and every night however I can – whether it’s winning draws, being a good penalty killer or scoring goals.”

The Komets (30-24-5) have won six of their last eight games to pull within a point of the Fuel and Wheeling Nailers for second place in the Central Division, though Fort Wayne’s .551 winning percentage is only fifth best in the division with 13 games remaining in the regular season. Fort Wayne plays at the Cincinnati Cyclones (25-27-5) 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and needs to keep winning to hold off the Kalamazoo Wings, who are two points back with three games in hand.

Rookie players such as Linden, Ethan De Jong, Noah Ganske, Jake Chiasson and Nolan Volcan have been a big part of Fort Wayne’s recent ascension in the standings.

“Guys are really focusing on the little things it takes to win, not being too high or too low on the bench,” Linden said. “Earlier in the season, I think we got a little too hot on the bench and sometimes would take a penalty when we shouldn’t when things didn’t go our way, but we’ve been more level headed and focusing on the task at hand.”

Still, though, the Komets need to do a better job of protecting leads. In Saturday’s 4-3 loss to Wheeling, they squandered leads three times. Sunday, they coughed up a two-goal third-period lead before getting a power-play goal from De Jong and then another one from Linden, who redirected an Ethan Keppen shot.

“We’ve just got to stay on the gas,” Linden said. “Sometimes when we get a lead, we get shaky on the puck and start throwing it away. So, we just need to take a deep breath and realize we’ve got to stay on the gas offensively, too. The best defense is when you have the puck.”