AMERKS MANAGING ENERGY, PERSONNEL HEADING INTO BUSY WEEKEND
Feb 17, 2023By Suzie Cool
January and February are what some would refer to as the “dog days” of the hockey season. Rochester Americans head coach Seth Appert even said it yesterday as his team is amid their busiest stretch of the 2022-23 campaign right now.
“January and February, certainly,” started Appert when asked about the dog days of the season. “The schedule is part of it, it’s the time of year where it's gray and it's cold most of the time and another part of it is it's starts to be hard to score at this time of the year and that's hockey at a high level everywhere.”
We talked about it earlier this week.
How the Amerks are currently in a stretch of four games over a six-day span, all against North Division opponents, including the first-place Toronto Marlies tonight and tomorrow. This weekend also kicks off Rochester’s first of back-to-back three-in-three weekends. Again, not an easy stretch to take on at this time of the year.
So, as you would probably expect, there’s a lot of load management that goes into a weekend and a stretch like the one the Amerks are taking on right now.
“From a coaching staff and management perspective, you do kind of think a little bit through this (three-in-three weekend) and have conversations behind the scenes,” said Appert when discussing the weekend ahead. “We have three healthy forwards and two healthy defensemen that aren't in tonight's lineup. We need to utilize different lineups throughout this three-game stretch to maximize our ability to be fresh. Those are things that you have to discuss behind the scenes and have to consider when putting the roster out there.”
What we do know about tonight’s lineup is that goaltender Michael Houser will be getting the start in net. Other than that, there’s not much of an update because lines and pairings will be getting mixed up throughout the course of the weekend to ensure that everyone is fresh and full of energy for the stretch ahead.
However, luckily for the players, it shouldn’t change how they approach the weekend as the mindset is always one game, and day, at a time.
“It shouldn't change in terms of the players,” said Appert, “so the most important game is the game we have right in front of us tonight against Toronto, the best team in our division.”
As the Amerks kick off their first three-in-three of the season tonight it’s also the first half of a home-and-home series against the North Division leaders at The Blue Cross Arena. Game time is slated for a 7:05 p.m. start and will be carried live on The Sports Leader 95.7 FM/950 AM The Fan Rochester as well as AHLTV.