AMERKS WEEK 1 ROUND-UP: SPECIAL TEAMS SHINE, YOUTH MOVEMENT IN ROCHESTER
Oct 18, 2022By Suzie Cool
The Rochester Americans enter Week 2 coming off a weekend split in a home-and-home series against the Toronto Marlies, with each team winning on home ice. It marked the first time they’ve opened a season with back-to-back games against a Canadian-based opponent since the 1995-96 campaign.
In the weekend’s matchups, we saw three rookies tally their first American Hockey League points, back-to-back starts for goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Amerks head coach Seth Appert was pleased with the overall performance and what he saw from his young to kick-off the 2022-23 season. We caught up with Appert earlier this week and here the biggest takeaways from this past weekend’s action.
APPERT’S FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE TEAM
“There’s a lot of good with this team. I think you start with the team defensive play that we only gave up one five-on-five goal on the weekend. So, that was a good thing from a purely defensive standpoint because we are very young.”
Young is an understatement. The Amerks have seven rookie forwards alone in Tyson Kozak, Jiri Kulich, Isak Rosen, Filip Cederqvist and Aleksandr Kisakov, who all never played in a game in the AHL prior to last weekend, while Kohen Olischefski and Lukas Rousek saw minimal time with Rochester last year. However, we can’t take away from what these seven players produced this weekend, combining for two goals and four assists between the group.
Though, to be fair, the defense and special teams did keep the Amerks in this weekend’s matchups against Toronto and Appert admitted that five-on-five play was going to be a big focal point heading into the team’s second week of action.
“The power-play was very good one night and was quite poor the next, which is understandable. The penalty kill was unbelievable one night and struggled the next, understandable early on. We need to get to the net a little bit more five-on-five to create a little bit more offensive scoring chances on a five-on-five basis, but for the most part, a lot of good.”
APPERT ON FIRST REAL TASTE OF AHL FOR THE YOUNG GUNS
“It’s a reality check of how hard the American Hockey League is. You win and a lot of those guys played well. You get on a bus ride for three hours. You have to cross the border. You get in at 2:00 in the morning. You're trying to go to sleep. You wake up and its basically game time the next afternoon and now you're on the road and they have a home crowd and they're energized,” said Appert when asked how the first quick turnaround was vital for the younger players to experience.
As much as this weekend was a “reality” check for some of the newcomers, Appert looked at it as an opportunity for players that have been here for a year or longer.
With such a young team this season, it gives players like forwards Linus Weissbach, Brandon Biro, Brett Murray and Linus Weissbach a chance to step up and be leaders despite what year they are in their pro careers or how old they are on the roster. And, after this weekend, Appert feels that these four players are ready for this kind of responsibility and the pressure that comes along with it.
“I think that they all handled it adequately on Saturday,” Appert continued about the rookies on the roster. “You know, none of them handled it with flying colors. So, they’ll be learning moments from that, but then there's also learning moments for some of our older players. This is such a great opportunity for Rousek, Weissbach, Biro, Murray to become leaders and drivers on our team. It's one thing to score as a secondary scorer and be productive, but it's another thing to be the guys that have to drive your team every night. There's more responsibility and more pressure that comes along with that.”
FOCUSING ON ROUSEK AND WEISSBACH
“We need consistency of competitiveness from both of them,” said Appert when asked what we can expect out of Rousek and Weissbach this season.
Rousek and Weissbach took part in both Development Camp and Prospects Challenge this offseason, already becoming prominent leaders with the younger core the Buffalo Sabres brand is continuing to build. In the first weekend of play, the two forwards came out with a pair of points apiece with Weissbach tallying the Amerks first goal of the 2022-23 campaign.
That’s a good sign considering the organization took into account what it would take in order to have these particular players grow. It took not making unnecessary offseason signings in order to allow Rousek, Weissbach, Biro and Murray to become leaders and drivers while in an Amerks jersey this year.
A pressure that will allow them all to grow as pros.
“We intentionally didn't sign guys to block Rousek, Weissbach, Biro and Murray from becoming the drivers of our team. So that's a great pressure. It's a healthy pressure that they have on them to be consistently competitive because if they're consistently competitive with their talent and their mind, then they're going to be really good players every night.”
LOOKING AHEAD TO THIS WEEK
The Amerks return to The Blue Cross Arena on Wednesday, Oct. 19 to host the Belleville Senators in the first meeting between the two teams since Rochester completed a two-game sweep in the North Division play-in series this past spring. Wednesday’s matchup will be the first of eight encounters this season between the two clubs.
When the upcoming weekend hits, the Amerks are once again faced with another home-in-home but this time against the Syracuse Crunch. On Friday, Rochester hosts Syracuse with a 7:05 p.m. puck drop before heading to the Upstate Medical Arena on Saturday for a 7 p.m. rematch with the Crunch. All this week’s games will be carried live on 95.7 FM/950 AM The Fan Rochester as well as AHLTV.