Amerks Make Their Way To Cleveland Tonight

Feb 12, 2021

TONIGHT’S GAME OVERVIEW
The Rochester Americans (1-1-0-0) look to make it two straight tonight when they travel to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse to take on the Cleveland Monsters. The 7:00 p.m. contest will be the first of six scheduled meetings between the two teams this season. The game will be carried live on The Sports Leader 95.7 FM/950 AM ESPN Rochester as well as AHLTV. The game will also be the AHL’s featured matchup of the week on Facebook Watch.

GAME NOTES	MEDIA KIT
2020-21 AHL STANDINGS	2020-21 NHL STANDINGS
2020-21 ROCHESTER STATS	2020-21 BUFFALO STATS
2020-21 CLEVELAND STATS	2020-21 COLUMBUS STATS
WATCH LIVE!	LISTEN LIVE!

 

LAST TIME OUT
On the strength of multi-point efforts from Oskari Laaksonen (0+3), Remi Elie (2+0) and Jean-Sebastien Dea (0+2), the Amerks survived a late push from the Syracuse Crunch (1-0-1-0) and earned a 4-3 overtime victory over their North Division rivals Wednesday night at The Blue Cross Arena.

While Rochester was led offensively by Laaksonen, Elie and Dea, team captain Steven Fogarty capped off the win with his first goal as an Amerk 1:39 into the extra session as second-year winger Brett Murray chipped in his first marker of the campaign. Wednesday’s two-goal outing was the first multi-goal effort for Elie. He now has 18 goals in 60 career games with the Amerks since 2017-18. 

Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen picked up his first win of the young season thanks to a 20-save effort. In 12 career games with the Amerks, five have come  opposite the Crunch.

Veteran foward Michael Mersch, a Calder Cup winner and former AHL All-Star, recorded one shot in his Amerks debut.

First-year Amerks head coach Seth Appert earned his first win behind the bench after being named the 33rd bench boss in franchise history during the off-season.

The Amerks scored a pair of power-play goals in Wednesday’s contest. In six of the last nine games against Syracuse dating back last season, Rochester shows a 9-for-34 (26.4%) mark with the man-advantage. After going 4-5-1-0 against the Crunch during the 2017-18 campaign, the Amerks are 13-7-1-1 in their last 22 contests against Syracuse, which also includes a 7-3-0-0 record in the previous 10 meetings.

WATCH: SETH APPERT AFTER MORNING SKATE

LAAKSONEN LEADING THE WAY
Newcomer Oskari Laaksonen has quickly emerged as one of the top offensive defensemen in the AHL.

Coming off his three-assist effort against Syracuse on Wednesday, the first-year defenseman has taken over the team’s scoring lead with three points through his first two games of the season.

He’s currently tied for the league lead in assists and points among all defensemen as well as all rookie blueliners. He’s one of eight AHL defensemen to currently lead his team in scoring.

YOUTH MOVEMENT
Rochester’s roster features 12 incoming rookies ready to make a splash in their first season in the American Hockey League, most of whom are products of the NCAA in forwards Brandon Biro (Penn State), Dawson DiPietro (Western Michigan), Dominic Franco (Army West Point) and Patrick Polino (R.P.I.); defensemen Ryan Jones (Nebraska-Omaha), Nick Welsh (St. Mary’s) Griffin Luce (Michigan) and Mattias Samuelsson (Western Michigan).

Buffalo’s second-round selection (32nd overall) in 2018, Samuelsson played the 2017-18 season under Amerks head coach Seth Appert while playing for the U-18 national team. He served as captain of the U-18 team that won silver at the 2018 IIHF U-18 World Championship before leading the Americans to another second-place finish at the 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship the following year.

Jack Quinn, Buffalo’s eighth overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, rounds out this year’s rookie class for Rochester. He’s coming off an explosive 52-goal season for the Ottawa 67’s in 2019-20, becoming just the seventh played in Ontario Hockey League history to reach the 50-goal mark in his NHL Draft Year.

WATCH: BRANDON BIRO AFTER MORNING SKATE

FINN-ISHING TOUCH
Perhaps the most significant addition to the Amerks lineup this season comes by way of Finland following the highly anticipated arrival of forward Arttu Ruotsalainen, defenseman Oskari Laaksonen and goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. While Luukkonen split last season between Rochester and Cincinnati, Ruotsalainen and Laaksonen are the latest to make their North American debuts with the Amerks after beginning this season with their respective SM-liiga teams in Finland.

Ruotsalainen began the season by scoring a league-high 16 goals and  adding 11 asissts for 27 points as the top scorer in Finland in just 19 games for Ilves. He was on pace to surpass his 21-goal season from the 2018-19 campaign, a mark he reached over 59 appearances. Through two games with the Amerks this season, he was two points and ranks second on the team with six shots.

Laaksonen, meanwhile, recorded 12 points (4+8) in 20 games with Pelicans to begin the season. emen and were seventh-most on the team at the time.

WATCH: CASEY FITZGERALD AFTER MORNING SKATE

SCOUTING THE MONSTERS
The Monsters open their season tonight after finishing at the bottom of the AHL’s North Division last season with a 24-31-5-2 record in 62 games.

Cleveland’s offense was among the worst last season, scoring just 159 goals in 62 games, marking the fourth-fewest among all AHL teams in 2019-20.

The Monsters return 10 of their players from last season, including three of their top six point-getters in forwards Ryan MacInnis and Trey Fix-Wolansky, and defenseman Dillon Simpson. MacInnis led all Cleveland forwards with 23 assists and 30 points while Fix-Wolansky scored a team-high 12 goals in 43 games as a rookie.

Former Amerks forward Zac Dalpe returns for his fifth season in Cleveland. He began the 2019-20 campaign with four goals in his first eight games before suffering a season-ending injury.

SEASON NOTABLES

Amerks forward Andrew Oglevie scored his first career hat trick back on Nov. 30, 2019 against Cleveland, single-handedly outscoring the Monsters to lead the Amerks to a 3-2 win.

Rochester holds a record of 29-7-4-4 over Cleveland since the start of the 2011-12 campaign and earned a point in all seven games last season.

Last season in the head-to-head series, all seven games were decided by one goal, including five that went beyond regulation.

Monsters captain Nathan Gerbe spent five seasons in the Buffalo Sabres organization from 2008-13 and was named the AHL’s Rookie of the Year in 2008-09 after leading all first-year players with 56 points (30+26) in 57 games for the Portland Pirates. In 95 career games with the Monsters, Gerbe has recorded 75 points 22 goals and 53 assists since joining Cleveland for the 2017-18 season.