Rochester Americans Game Preview: Saturday, October 15 at Toronto
October 15, 2022 – American Hockey League (AHL) – Rochester Americans News Release
Friday’s season-opener with Toronto marked the first time since Oct. 9, 2010
that Rochester opened the season versus the Marlies and the first at home
since an 8-5 win over Toronto to begin the 2012-13 campaign.
With the win last night, Rochester improved a 34-26-7 all-time record in
season-opening games and have outscored the opposition 248-230 dating
back to when the puck first dropped on Amerks inaugural season in 1956.
Toronto went 4-2-0-0 in the six-game series in 2021-22, and coming into
today, have won two of the last four meetings between the two teams. The
Amerks earned just one point in the three get-togethers in Rochester last
season and over the last five years show a 5-6-1-1 mark compared to a 8-4-
0-0 record in Toronto.
Since the start of the 2016-17 season, Toronto has been outscored 108-107
despite outshooting the Amerks 1,078-1,052. There have been six shutouts
since 2016-17 with four of the six coming in Toronto.
In the last 34 games against Toronto, the Amerks have scored two or more
goals in 26 contests, which includes 11 games where they have produced
five or more tallies. Coming into tonight’s matchup, the Amerks are 13-10-1-1
in their last 25 games against the Marlies spanning the last five seasons.
Friday’s Home Opener marked the fifth time in the last six years in which
Rochester opened the season against a divisional opponent.
Following a quick turnaround, the Rochester Americans (1-0-0-0) and
Toronto Marlies (0-1-0-0) conclude their opening weekend set as the
home-and-home series shifts north of the border for a 4:00 p.m. rematch at
Toronto’s Coca-Cola Coliseum. All of the action will be carried live on 95.7
FM/950 AM The Fan Rochester as well as AHLTV.
The Amerks and Marlies, who enter their 18th season in the AHL, will meet a
total of six other times during the 2022-23 regular season following today’s
contest, with today’s matchup representing the first of four in the Toronto.
Veteran forward
Michael Mersch returns for third season in Rochester
and second as the team’s captain, overseeing an Amerks leadership group
that also includes two alternate captains in forward
Sean Malone and
defenseman
Ethan Prow. Both Malone and Prow served as alternates in
2021-22.
On top of captaining the Amerks to the North Division Finals of the 2022
Calder Cup Playoffs, Mersch finished last season with 54 points on 26 goals
and 28 assists, all of which were, or matched, career totals in the league and
pushed him over the 20-goal mark for the fifth time in his pro career.
The nine-year pro has appeared in 471 career AHL games between the
Amerks, Texas Stars, Ontario Reign and Manchester Monarchs, totaling
318 points (156+162). Additionally, Mersch, a five-time 20-goal scorer in
the AHL who won a Calder Cup with Manchester in 2015, has skated in 17
career NHL contests with the Los Angeles Kings.
Of the 25 players on Rochester’s Opening Night roster, 11 are Buffalo Sabres
draft picks, including two first-round selections.
Isak Rosen (14th overall,) and Jiri Kulich (28th overall) come to the Flower
City as members of Buffalo’s first-round selections in 2021 and 2022,
respectively. Rosen spent the 2021-22 season with Leksands in Sweden,
where he made his debut in the Swedish Hockey League. He led all 17-year-
olds with the Leksands U20 as he posted 35 points (21+14) in 38 games.
Kulich, meanwhile, spent most of last season with HC Energie Karlovy Vary
of Czechia’s top pro league as a 17-year-old, appearing in a career-high
49 games. He tallied 14 points on nine goals and five assists while also
notching four points (2+2) in two games with HC Energie Karlovy Vary.
Aleksandr Kisakov (2nd round, 2021), Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (2nd
round, 2017),
Oskari Laaksonen (3rd round, 2017), Brett Murray (4th
round, 2019),
Filip Cederqvist (5th round, 2019), Sean Malone (6th round,
2013)
Lukas Rousek (6th round, 2019), Linus Weissbach (7th round, 2017),
Tyson Kozak (7th round, 2021) round out the Sabres NHL Draft picks.
Last night’s lineup featured five players who made their North American
professional debuts as well as a total of seven rookies.
Kohen Olischefski
and
Lukas Rousek both skated with Rochester during 2021-22 but are still
first-year skaters.
Seth Appert enters his third season as head coach of the Amerks in 2022-
23 after being named to the position on August 18, 2020.
Appert is 48-44-9-4 over his first two seasons behind the Amerks bench,
which includes a 37-win campaign in 2021-22 that culminated with an
extended playoff run as part of team’s first playoff appearance in four years.
After leading Rochester to a fifth-place finish in the AHL’s North Division
standings and becoming the sixth straight head coach to reach the 30-win
mark in his first full season at the helm, Appert spearheaded one of the
most impressive playoff runs in nearly two decades.
Under Appert, the Amerks won their first playoff series since 2005 and
advanced to the third round of Calder Cup Playoffs for the first time since
2004, first sweeping Belleville in the play-in round before ousting Utica,
one of the AHL’s top teams in the regular season, in the best-of-five North
Division Semifinals.
Excluding
Peter Tischke, Mitch Eliot, and Oskari Laaksonen, the other
five defensemen patrolling Rochester’s blueline have all appeared in at least
four NHL games, including newcomers
Kale Clague and Chase Priskie.
Ethan Prow finished third in scoring amongst all AHL defensemen with 49
points (10+39) in 70 games during his first season with Amerks in 2021-22.
It was also the second time in three AHL seasons he reached the 10-goal
mark. He made his NHL debut last year which featured his first NHL goal on
his first NHL shot at the age of 29 against New Jersey on Dec. 29.
Lawrence Pilut returns for his second stint in Rochester after spending the
last two seasons with Traktor Chelyabinsk of the KHL, where he recorded
39 points on seven goals and 32 assists in 97 contests. He also produced 10
points (1+9) in 20 postseason contests.
In 22 of the last 29 meetings between the two teams dating back to the
2016-17 season, the team that scored first has gone on to come away with
the victory. Additionally, in 19 of the last 21 meetings, the winning team has
scored at least four goals dating back to the 2017-18 season.
This weekend’s home-and-home series with the Marlies is the first time the
Amerks open the season with back-to-back games against a Canadian-
based opponent since splitting a two-game set with the Cape Breton Oilers
on Oct. 6 and 7 to begin the 1995-96 campaign. Rochester would later go on
to win the Calder Cup, the franchise’s sixth and most recent championship.
The Amerks improved 3-0-0-0 all-time in the season-opener against
the Marlies, outscoring Toronto 16-9 over that span. Prior to last night,
Rochester won the most recent season-opening contest on Oct. 9, 2010 to
kick-off the 2010-11 campaign.
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