By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
It’s been perhaps 17 years since the Rochester Americans could enter a shootout knowing they had more than enough talent to match up against opponents in the tiebreaking skills competition.
But with a stable of young talent – starting with Jack Quinn, JJ Peterka, Peyton Krebs and Linus Weissbach – to complement skilled veterans, coach Seth Appert isn’t forced to count on two or three players.
Although, on Friday night, two was enough as the Amerks survived a scare from the Lehigh Valley Phantoms to win 5-4 at Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial.
After a clutch penalty kill in overtime, Quinn and Peterka scored the shootout goals while goalie Michael Houser stopped the two shooters he faced as the Amerks improved to 8-5-0-0.
Quinn opened the shootout by methodically curling in from the right wing, speeding up as he hit the top of the circle and making three quick fakes before tucking the puck past goalie Felix Sandstrom’s right leg.
“They’ve seen him do some of those things in practice, so they’re not surprised, but they’re certainly still entertained,” Appert said.
Houser then stopped Gerry Mayhew, Sandstrom denied Mark Jankowski and Houser made a great glove stop on Morgan Frost.
Peterka ended the game but moving in with speed off left wing and firing five-hole.
“I knew what I was going to do before, so I’m glad it worked,” Peterka said.
The victory pushed the Amerks record to 8-5 as they head to Utica Saturday to play the still-undefeated Comets (12-0).
Not that Friday’s victory was any sort of work of art. Hardly. The Amerks opened a 2-0 lead in the first 7:34 on goals by Brett Murray and Weissbach but, rather deservingly, found themselves trailing 3-2 by the 4:13 mark of the second period.
The Phantoms (3-8-3-1) were clearly the better team for 40 minutes, outshooting Rochester 10-7 in the first period and 19-4 in the second.
“The second period was disgusting,” Appert said. “Maybe it was too easy. You score two goals on the first maybe two shots and we do have a lot of young players.”
They learned nothing comes easy in the American Hockey League if you don’t work.
“They put us in chaos and we couldn’t get out of chaos because of puck decisions and puck battles.”
The decisions were poor and the battles weren’t won. As a result, the Amerks were lucky to escape down only 3-2 after two periods.
But while the Amerks dominated in the third, it took until 12:57 to tie the game when Quinn set up Murray for his second goal of the game and fifth in seven games this season.
Peterka then put the Amerks ahead at 16:34, banging a bad-angle shot in off Sandstrom after Ethan Prow’s point shot missed the net on the near side but caromed off the end boards and into the left of the slot.
“I was already too deep (to shoot) so I just tried to hit the goalie,” Peterka said of his fourth goal.
The Phantoms, however, came back to force overtime when Mayhew slammed home the rebound of Frost’s shot from the high slot. The goal came with Sandstrom pulled for an extra attacker.
Houser was screened and never saw Frost’s shot, so he had no chance to defend Mayhew’s rebound try.
The Amerks spent two minutes of the final 2:05 of overtime killing a Sean Malone boarding penalty, and Mattias Samuelsson made the biggest save. He sprawled to the left of Houser to blocked Egor Zamula’s one-timer from the right circle.
“We had some massive blocked shots. Samuelsson’s sticks out the most but Prow had one and (John) Teves had one and Fitzy (Casey Fitzgerald) had one, but in my mind Samuelsson’s back-side one-timer blocked shot was a pretty special blocked shot.”
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