AMERKS NEED TO GET BACK TO PLAYING TO THEIR IDENTITY
Feb 2, 2023By Suzie Cool
As the Rochester Americans open up February with back-to-back games against the Belleville Senators this week, the team is trying to turn things around as they head into the 2023 All-Star break. That starts with creating a lot of net-front havoc against the Senators.
“Bellville is such a physically demanding team to play against. They're very challenging to play against. They're in your face. They take away your space there. They have a violence to their game,” said Amerks head coach Seth Appert when asked about the final two games heading into the 2023 All-Star break.
Tonight’s get-together is the fifth of eight scheduled meetings between Rochester and Belleville this season and the first of a two-game set prior to the AHL All-Star Classic. Following tonight, the two clubs will meet once more on Saturday before the annual break.
“It’s going to be important that we have our own (violence to their game),” continued Appert. “We play a different style, but you can't get pushed around and you have to have some push back in your game physically. One of those areas you push back is by attacking the inside and attacking in front of their net.”
So far this season, Rochester has posted a 2-1-0-1 record against Belleville after showing a 3-3-1-1 mark against the Senators in 2021-22.
Rochester is 14-14-2 all-time against Belleville despite being outscored 108-101 through the first 30 meetings with the Senators. Five of the last 10 matchups have been decided beyond regulation, including both games in the play-in round of the 2022 Calder Cup Playoffs.
As the Amerks head into the All-Star break, the most important thing for the team to do is to get reconnected after going just 3-7-1-0 in the month of January.
Appert feels this trip north of the border can be a part of the solution to the disconnection he’s seeing with his team right now. Along with creating chaos in front of the net, the next piece of the puzzle is getting back to being a puck pressuring team.
“Anything can help the solution if we do it together,” said Appert when asked how one final trip before the break might be fitting for the Amerks right now. “Our biggest philosophy is to put pressure on the puck. We want to be a puck pressure team. I think right now, defensively as well, we're not we're not attacking as much. We're not taking time and space away from our opponent as well as we did early in the season.”
Appert then finished with, “We're just a little disjointed right now. We got to get back to playing to our identity consistently.”
Tonight marks the first North Division matchup for the Amerks since Jan. 19 as the team played five straight Atlantic Division opponents to close out the month of January. Both contests this week against the Senators are set to begin at 7:05 p.m. All the action will be carried live on The Sports Leader 95.7 FM/950 AM The Fan Rochester as well as AHLTV.