Former RIT standout Powell hoping to stick with Amerks

By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA

The last time Myles Powell played at the Gene Polisseni Center, he was fighting the bitter pain of a career coming to an end.

The RIT Tigers lost their Atlantic Hockey Association playoff series to Sacred Heart on the first weekend of March, bringing to a crushing end Powell’s collegiate career.

But on Sunday night, Powell was back on the RIT campus, and smiling from ear to ear.

The former Tigers standout is now embarking on his pro career, hoping to earn an American Hockey League job with the Rochester Americans. He looked very much right at home in the Amerks lineup in a 4-1 preseason victory over the Syracuse Crunch.

“At the end of last year, it was tough, I was thinking it was the last time I’d played in the ‘Gene,’ ” Powell said.

Powell started the game at center between wingers Dalton Smith and Tyler Randell. It was coach Chris Taylor‘s way of saying, this is your building, you deserve the honor.

“I really appreciate Tails doing that for me,” Powell said. “To be able to come back here one last time was good.”

He was playing a totally different style than the one he played for RIT. With the Tigers, he was one of the go-to playmakers and scorers. Over his four-year career, he produced 45 goals, 60 assists and 105 points, one of 10 players in the school’s Division I program history to reach 100 points. He also played in two NCAA tournaments.

But in the AHL, he’s just another player hoping to make an impact. So to do so, he’s making as much impact as possible with the body by throwing check after check while hounding the puck on the forecheck.

“I’ve always thought I had the grittiness in me, I just didn’t think I had to do it as much before,” Powell said.

Said Smith: “He’s a smaller guy but he plays big.”

While Powell played well on Sunday, sticking with the Amerks won’t be easy. There will be an abundance of forwards on the roster, especially after Justin Bailey and Nick Baptiste cleared waivers on Sunday and were assigned to Rochester. At least two more forwards figure to come down this week, meaning the Amerks will be sending players to ECHL Cincinnati this week.

Is there room with the Amerks for Powell? “That’s something we’ll find out on Tuesday,” Taylor said. “We have a lot of hard decisions but that’s when you know an organization is moving in the right direction, when there’s hard decisions.”