AMERKS OCTOBER 2023 REPORT CARD
Oct 31, 2023
By Andrew Mossbrooks | @Mossbrooks48
October was a great month for the Rochester Americans. The Amerks opened their 68th season of hockey with a 5-1-1-0 record, marking the team’s best start through seven games in the last 14 years.
The first report card of the 2023-24 season sees this team earn a spot on the honor roll.
POWER PLAY: A+
Rochester boasts the second-best man advantage in the American Hockey League. The team enters November with eight power play goals on 25 tries, operating at a 32% clip. The eight conversions are tied with Hershey for the most power-play goals in October. They’ve scored when up a man in six straight, with Aleksandr Kisakov and Mason Jobst leading the way with two goals apiece.
“The power-play is humming right now,” said Amerks head coach Seth Appert on Monday’s media availability. To have the luxury of having four different power-play quarterback options (Ethan Prow, Zach Metsa, Kale Clague, Jeremy Davies) has been good to see.”
Bonus points: On the other side of special teams, Rochester is one of four AHL teams that have scored two or more shorthanded goals. Justin Richards and Lukas Rousek own claim to those.
SCORING GOALS: A
Like the power-play, Rochester ranks second in the league for goals with 33 through seven games. The team’s depth has been showcased throughout the opening weeks of the season, with 16 players having found the back of the net. Only Abbotsford (17) has more players with goals than Rochester.
Factor in players who have at least one point and that number swells to 21 different Amerks, a feat no other team has achieved thus far.
The Amerks have scored four or more goals in all but one game so far this season. Of the 33 goals scored, nearly half of them (16) came in the final week of the month, as Rochester collected wins over Charlotte (4-3), Laval (7-4), and Utica (5-4).
Bonus points: Rochester is represented in the AHL’s top-10 for points, goals (both Jiri Kulich), power-play goals (Aleksandr Kisakov), and shots (Jeremy Davies).
WINNING GAMES: A+
The Amerks haven’t impressed from a quantitative standpoint when it comes to winning games, but rather, the way in which they’re winning.
Each of the team’s five victories seem to have a different identity. Trailing 4-1 in Toronto on opening weekend, Rochester staged a three-goal, third-period comeback to knot things at four before Kulich sank the overtime winner to get Rochester its first win of the season.
The following week, the team built a three-goal lead of its own in Laval before the Rocket made some noise and evened the score. In a game where all the momentum belonged to Laval in the back half, the Amerks stayed resilient and persevered through overtime with a 5-4 win (thanks to Kulich once again).
Then, last week took place. Another seesaw outing on Wednesday came when the Amerks trailed Charlotte by a pair of goals with less than six minutes left, before a Rochester rally saw three goals in a 2:42 span to lift the Amerks past the Checkers with a 4-3 win.
The team then showed its muscle Friday with a season high-seven goals scored, including a hat trick by Jobst in a 7-4 outcome over Laval, before venturing to Utica and hanging on to a lead that shrank from three to one in a 5-4 win against the Comets.
“I thought every game felt similar,” said Appert. “We came back against Charlotte. We kind of ran away with it against Laval and then won a tight one in Utica, so there’s different elements to them. The Charlotte game was a huge game for us because we didn’t get away from playing the right way. It didn’t pay off until the last six minutes, but the guys stuck with it, and I think that gave them some confidence and belief and then I thought we doubled down on it over the weekend with playing that way. I thought it felt similar.”
GOLD STAR STUDENTS: JIRI KULICH & JEREMY DAVIES
The Buffalo Sabres’ first round draft pick is up to six goals on the season. Kulich ranks third in goals across the AHL and 10th overall in points with nine. He’s tied with Isak Rosen for the team lead in points. In the Amerks’ 5-4 win against Laval on Oct. 18, Kulich registered his first career hat trick.
The second-year pro’s hot start is similar to that of his start to the Calder Cup Playoffs last April, when the 19-year-old scored in each of the first six games of the postseason. Kulich is up to the same goal total now through seven games to start the season. Here’s hoping that continues into November.
On the blueline, Davies and Clague are tied for third in scoring by a defenseman with seven points each. Clague has a goal and six assists while Davies has two goals and five helpers.
In the case of Davies, the fifth-year pro is two points back of 100 for his AHL career and three games shy of 200 in the league. Davies has exceeded both those numbers when factoring in his 23 games at the NHL.
“Something we’re really proud of as a staff over the years is that we want to make all of our players better, not just the prospects. That is our goal as a staff is to make every player we have a better hockey player. Jeremy Davies is a great example of that. He is defending hard and physically. He is in the rush. He’s solving more problems with his mind, which has opened up more offense for him.”
NOVEMBER SYLLABUS
Rochester’s first full month of the 2023-24 campaign features 10 games over 30 days, with an evenly split five home and five away contests. Half the team’s 10-game slate comes against Utica (three times) and Syracuse (two times). Rochester hosts no more than two consecutive games on home ice this month, while its longest road trip of November will be a three-game stretch from the 11th- 18th (Utica, Cleveland twice).
The chance to create separation within the North Division standings will be paramount throughout the month, with all but one game coming within the division. The lone non-North Division adversary will be the swansong of the month when Rochester busses to Lehigh Valley for a Thanksgiving Weekend date with the Phantoms. Before that, their penultimate November game comes on home ice against Laval on Black Friday, which follows a Thanksgiving Eve matchup with the Rocket at Blue Cross Arena.