GAMEDAY NOTES AND QUOTES: AMERKS AND ROCKET MEET IN OFFENSIVE COLLISION
Nov 22, 2023
By Andrew Mossbrooks | @Mossbrooks48
Two of the AHL’s most explosive offenses meet Wednesday night when the Rochester Americans (8-4-2-0) entertain the Laval Rocket (5-9-1-0) at Blue Cross Arena for their first of two encounters this week.
“They’re a very dynamic offensive team,” said Amerks head coach Seth Appert following Wednesday’s morning skate. “They’re explosive and hard to play against. You need to manage the puck. It’s not always generating a scoring chance when managing the puck. Sometimes you have to live to fight another day with how you play the puck.”
WEISS is BACH
Appert confirmed earlier this morning that forward Linus Weissbach will re-enter the lineup after missing nearly five weeks of action due to an upper-body injury.
“I just want him to play his game,” said Appert. “He’s been here for years and I trust him in every situation on our team. He plays penalty kill, power-play, he’s really good five-on-five. I’m just excited to have him back.”
The third-year Amerk has amassed 88 points (37+51) over his 140-game tenure. Weissbach last played when the team was in Laval on Oct. 20. He registered an assist in each of his two games played against Laval and has scored six goals and registered 10 points in 17 career games against the Rocket.
“You don’t want to lose any player, but when you lose players like (Micheal) Mersch, (Brandon) Biro, and Weissbach; you miss players of that caliber and players that have been here for a number of years and are drivers of our culture and our identity. Getting them back is important.”
NEED FOR SPEED
The Amerks and Rocket have combined for 109 goals on the season, with 32 coming through their first three meetings of the season series. While containing Laval’s offense is a priority, the Amerks know they can’t solely focus on defense to win.
“Slow plays into their hands. I will never be a coach that coaches his team to play slow. If you play slow, you’ll have to play through five players on defense. If you play fast, you may only need to get through two players.”
“I think that when you have two offensive teams it usually means these are teams that think of creating offense quick,” said Mason Jobst. “They’re trying to jump past a guy or the defense is looking to pinch and keep pucks alive, but that’s an area you can exploit and transition quickly by creating turnovers and it’s got to be fast before they jump back into structure. That can lead to offense and odd-man rushes.”
LESSONS LEARNED
The Amerks are coming off a wild 7-5 win in Cleveland Saturday night. The back-and-forth pace to the game mirrored chaos at times; a word Appert has used to describe Laval’s style of play. But the Amerks are 14 games into the season. They are still learning and there is never a moment where you can’t take something from.
“You want to learn from every moment you have,” said Appert. “How you handle moments, how you handle situations; we talked about some of those things this week. Second periods have been hard at times and your puck decisions get magnified in the second period because you have a long change to the bench. You never want to be a coach that takes the puck out of your players’ hands. I want our players to play with confidence and play fearless with an attacking style. But you want to teach them if the risk is worth the reward.”
PREDICTABILITY
For a second straight game, Jobst will center a line with Michael Mersch and Aleksandr Kisakov. Appert referred to the Amerks captain as one of the more predictable players he’s ever coached, and how that’s part of Rochester’s identity: to be predictable for one another on the ice in an effort to maximize capitalizing on chances.
“That’s one of the reasons I enjoy playing with Mersch so much,” said Jobst when asked about the predictability of the captain. “His predictability isn’t always the fancy play. It’s just making the right play and the simple play. That allows me to use my speed through the neutral zone and forecheck because I know he’s going to get pucks in deep or bump pucks back to me off the rush. It just allows me to not question where the puck’s going. I already know where the puck’s going because of the way he plays.”
Jobst has spent the bulk of his games playing alongside Mersch on the ice. The Speedway, Indiana, native is third on Rochester with six goals and posted a hat trick against Laval back on Oct. 27.
“It’s been a pretty good start for myself. I’m happy with how things are going and I feel like I’m clicking together with my linemates and me and Mersch have built off the chemistry we had last year. I’m happy with the way things have gone so far.”