Pilut flies high as Amerks, with 2 D-men at forward, win in OT

By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA

On a night when two defensemen were forced to play forward, another showed why he’s one of the best blue liners in the American Hockey League.

Lawrence Pilut scored the first goal and then made perfect passes to set up the other two — including the overtime winner by Andrew Oglevie — as the Rochester Americans defeated the Cleveland Monsters 3-2.

A week ago at this time, Pilut was in his homeland with the Buffalo Sabres, joining the team as a standby reserve for the NHL’s Global Series against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Sweden.

While he didn’t play, the trip home was a nice getaway, especially since he’s usually gone for eight months once he leaves for training camp.

“I got to see a lot of friends,” Pilut said. “Usually you hope it’s a really long time before you go home.”

The 23-year-old Pilut rejoined the Amerks early this week, played in Wednesday’s 4-3 home victory over the Syracuse Crunch, and then filled the role of hero in Friday’s victory at Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial.

He tied the score 3:27 into the second period by converting a Kevin Porter pass into the high slot. Just 2:52 later, he set up Jean-Sebastian Dea in the right circle on a power play for a 2-1 lead.

Then after the Monsters forced overtime with a goal by Ryan MacInnis at 18:55 of the third period, the Amerks needed just 56 seconds of extra time to win it.

A poor line change left Dea alone behind the Cleveland defense and Pilut made a thread-the-needle pass to spring a breakaway.

“His vision is as good as anyone in the league,” Amerks interim coach Gord Dineen said. 

Dea was stopped by goalie Matiss Kivlenieks but Oglevie was lurking behind and roofed the rebound for his third goal of the season.

“Larry (Pilut) made a really heads-up pass and I thought I’d trail a little bit in case there was a rebound and it worked out,” Oglevie said.

While Pilut put his skills on display, and pushed his production totals to 2 goals, 6 assists and 8 points in 10 games, two other defensemen were proving they could help in other ways.

Veteran Nathan Paetsch and second-year defender Brandon Hickey were forced to play forward. Injuries to C.J. Smith, Scott Wilson, Remi Elie, Taylor Leier and Jarrett Burton, plus the recall of Rasmus Asplund and Curtis Lazar, left the Amerks with only 10 healthy forwards.

“Everybody played well, everybody embraced the challenge,” said Dea, whose seven goals are tops on the team.

Still, having two defensemen on a forward line made for some different looks, that’s for sure.

“I’ve never seen four defensemen on the ice at once,” Dea said. “It was kind of funny to see but they did a great job.”

Dineen was quite sure they would, too.

“When you have guys do that, you know they’re going to be responsible on the defensive side of the puck, and they put a lot of heart and soul into,” Dineen said.

He figured that would be the case because that was his mentality some 35 or so years ago, when as a member of the New York Islanders he was forced to play forward for two games.

Both Paetsch and Hickey were more than happy to help. Paetsch sat out the first 14 games because the lineup was full. Hickey had played in just five games.

“We had some guys fill in some roles that were a little different but they played well,” Oglevie said.