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ROSEN, ROCHESTER READY FOR GAME 5

ROSEN, ROCHESTER READY FOR GAME 5

May 6, 2023

“You can prepare all you want, but then Game 1 hits you in the face,” Amerks head coach Seth Appert warned before the Round 2 series against Syracuse began. “And then you react. And you do the best to prepare, but there’s going to be some growing pains and that’s okay.”

 

He was right.

 

And it is okay.

 

Because for rookie Isak Rosen, he has reacted incredibly. Sunday’s Game 4 might have been his best game of the year, according to goaltender Malcolm Subban. “Looking at the plays he made, he just had so much poise out there.”

 

 

Although he didn’t score on Sunday, Rosen opened the scoring in Rochester on Friday night. His goal erupted the home crowd, and was the first of eight goals the Amerks would score en route to a Game 3 victory. Rosen added an assist on Jiri Kulich’s goal.

 

“The crowd here in Rochester was so good,” Rosen told the media on Friday. “It was different than the regular season.” The crowd was different for his first playoff experience, but the game was different, too: “Everything, the tempo and everything, rises in the playoffs.”

 

“You have to be there in every moment of the game, every second and millisecond of the time you’re on the ice. You have to be ready.”

 

Rosen was ready for Game 3, after a week of discussion with the coaching staff and adjustments on the ice at practice. “It was such a quick turnaround from an overtime game,” Appert explained, “That maybe he just wasn’t able to totally process it all the way and make the internal adjustments he needed to make.”

 

The coaches challenged Rosen to self-evaluate after Game 2, asking him what he learned and what he could take from the first two games of the series. They let the rookie do most of the talking because, according to Appert, those are the bet developmental moments.

 

“We can poke questions and prod them, but they’re the ones doing the processing and thinking and speaking. He was able to self-asses pretty darn correctly at what some of the issues were, and we just helped him work through the solutions.”

 

 

His assessment, and his adjustments, were evident immediately in Game 3. On why he played so well, Rosen replied: “I think just a lot of confidence from what I learned in Syracuse… I brought that into the game and we were good from the start, and just kept going.”

 

The Amerks scored 12 goals in the two home games, and look to keep their momentum going in Syracuse for Game 5. “It’s not an easy building to play in, but it doesn’t matter,” Rosen said.

 

“We’re just going in there to win, and we’re all excited about Game 5. Everybody wants to be in those games, so it’s going to be a fun game.”

 

Rosen and the Rochester squad face-off against the Syracuse Crunch in the winner-take-all Game 5 at 7:00pm on Saturday night. The game can be streamed on AHLTV, heard on The Fan Rochester, or viewed at The Distillery Mt. Hope location in Rochester.

 

The winner will face the Toronto Marlies in the North Division Finals.

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