GAME PREVIEW: AMERKS PLAY FIRST OF TWO AGAINST TOP RANKED ROCKET
Rochester set to play six of next eight games on home ice
Nov 12, 2024
By Andrew Mossbrooks | @Mossbrooks48
The Rochester Americans (7-4-0-0) face-off with the Laval Rocket (9-2-0-0) for the first of two meetings on the week Wednesday night at Blue Cross Arena.
This will be the first of eight meetings between the Amerks and Rocket during the 2024-25 regular season. Rochester went 6-2-0-0 against Laval last season and took all four meetings on home ice. Since the Rocket entered the AHL ahead of the 2017-18 season, the Amerks have never had a losing record in a season series against them.
“They're really well coached,” said Amerks head coach Michael Leone. “They're really organized. They defend really well, and they have players offensively that that can hurt you. It's going to be really important tonight that we stay disciplined in not just taking penalties, but discipline in the game. There can't be any easy offense because they could really hurt you off the line rush. We've got to make sure we're playing a predictable game and where we're putting pucks to areas that’s making it really hard on them.”
LAST TIME OUT
Both Rochester and Laval are seeking bounce-back victories after their respective win streaks were snapped over the weekend.
Following their historic 2,500th franchise win, the Amerks suffered a 5-0 setback Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. The loss saw Rochester’s six-game win streak come to a close, after the team had outscored its opponents 32-13 across the previous half-dozen games. It marked the first time the Amerks had been shutout since Jan. 26 of this year and the first time away from home since Nov. 16, 2023. In addition to the win streak being snapped, so too did the six-game point streak of Isak Rosen, who collected three goals and seven assists during that stretch. Overall, Rosen leads Rochester with 13 points (4+9) and leads all North Division skaters in points.
In its eighth AHL season, Laval saw its franchise-best eight-game win streak come to a halt Saturday in Belleville. Despite yielding a 2-0 lead late in the second period, the Rocket surrendered three unanswered goals to the Senators for just their second loss of the season. The Montreal Canadiens’ affiliate is in the midst of a five-game road trip that will end in Rochester later in the week on Saturday when the two teams rendezvous for a rematch.
HOME COOKIN’
Six of Rochester’s next eight games will be played right here in the Flower City, carrying them through until Nov. 30 when the Amerks end the month in Syracuse. November sees the Amerks play a season high-14 games in the month, splitting them evenly between home and away.
Thus far, Rochester owns a 4-1-0-0 record in November. With 14 points, the Buffalo Sabres’ affiliate places third in the North Division standings, trailing both Laval and Toronto, two teams the Amerks will face over the next five days. In 2023-24, the Amerks had a clean sweep of the Rocket on home ice, going 4-0-0-0 at Blue Cross Arena, including a pair of overtime wins on back-to-back nights last November.
PROW TO MAKE SEASON DEBUT
Leone confirmed Wednesday morning that veteran defenseman and alternate captain Ethan Prow will make his 2024-25 season debut after beginning the year with an injury. The ninth-year pro has skated in over 400 AHL games, logging 52 goals and 173 assists for 225 points.
“He's been a really good player in this league for a long time,” said Leone. “Even in the preseason, having never coached him, you could see he gives some poise and composure back there with the way he can move pucks. He's really smart. We're really excited to have him back in the lineup this season.”
“It's just a different feeling being back on the ice with everybody,” said Prow. “I am really excited. The team has had a good start. It's obviously still early and we're still building and really trying to find what identity that we need to have day in and day out that takes care of it and gets us wins, but everybody is buying in and it's coming along really nicely.”
In addition to Prow, coach Leone provided injury updates to the following players:
Goaltender Felix Sandström: day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Sandstrom could return as early as this weekend.
Forward Tyson Kozak: week-to-week with a lower-body injury. Kozak could potentially return to play next week.
Forward Noah Östlund: week-to-week with an upper-body injury. There is no further timetable on when Östlund will be cleared to play.
WHO’S HOUSE?
On Tuesday, Amerks head coach Michael Leone confirmed that goaltender Michael Houser will make his seventh start and eighth appearance of the season, getting the nod to take the crease against Laval Wednesday evening.
Houser, in his 13th professional season, appeared in both games last weekend and four of Rochester’s last six contests. He currently ranks seventh in the AHL’s Eastern Conference in minutes played with 391. The fifth-year Amerk is 4-2-0 on the season after a 23-save performance against the Penguins over the weekend.
Against Laval, the veteran goaltender is 1-1-1 in four appearances. Houser posted 42 saves in an overtime loss to the Rocket on March 3, 2023, tying his second-most saves recorded in an AHL game.
TEAM ROCKET
Even with their win streak getting snapped, the Rocket still lead the North Division with 18 points, while their nine wins tie them for third most across the AHL. This comes a year after the team had won just two of its first 10 games to begin the 2023-24 campaign.
Pascal Vincent, who served as head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets last season, took over the reigns as the bench boss in Laval to begin this year. The Laval native is in his 14th season in a coaching role at the NHL/AHL level.
Laval has gone under significant change from where they were a year ago, bringing in more than a dozen new players, including former Crunch forward and two-time AHL Al-Star Alex Barre-Boulet, who is second on the team in scoring with 11 points (3+8). Joshua Roy leads the team with seven goals and 12 points through 11 games. Last season, Roy recorded a hat trick as part of a five-point performance against Rochester on Oct. 20.
Connor Hughes leads the Rocket in-between the pipes, showing a 5-1-0 record, having won every start since Oct. 19.