By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
These are tough times for the Rochester Americans, especially when fans thought they would be trending upward.
Last weekend, Jack Quinn returned to the lineup. On Wednesday, Sean Malone was cleared to play.
Except Quinn was held out of Wednesday’s game – a 7-2 loss on home ice to the Laval Rocket – and Malone apparently aggravated his injury during the game and could miss even more time.
Don’t look now, but a team that in October and November had more than enough talent to make a playoff run suddenly isn’t even assured of earning a playoff berth.
They are 27-22-3-2 and have slipped to fifth place in the American Hockey League’s North Division, the final playoff spot in this year’s nearly-everyone-qualifies format (23 of the 31 teams advance to the post season).
Still missing far too many top guns up front, too much grit and shutdown ability on the blue line and devoid of consistent goaltending, the Amerks need to play exceptionally well every night if they hope to win.
And they certainly can’t afford misfortune or misplays, which they endured twice in the first seven minutes of the second period and turned a scoreless tie into a 2-0 deficit.
On the first shift of the second period, defenseman Brandon Davidson broke a skate blade was totally helpless as Laval’s Jesse Ylonen attacked on right wing. With Davidson unable to use his left skate, Ylonen zoomed around him wide, cut to the net and tucked the puck past goalie Aaron Dell at 46 seconds.
Laval defenseman Tory Dello then scored 5:40 later when his centering pass from behind the net caromed off Dell’s stick and into the net.
“With the lineup we have, we can’t chase the game,” Amerks coach Seth Appert said. “It’s been six to eight weeks of being undermanned. We don’t have the firepower to consistently score five, or to chase the game.”
So what was merely a hole became a crater at 9:07 when Brandon Gignac scored a breakaway goal while killing a penalty.
It was the 11th short-handed goal allowed by the Amerks, worst in the AHL.
“I didn’t think we were out-playing them, but I don’t think we were getting outplayed,” Appert said. “I thought we were pretty good for the first 25 or 30 minutes. But you look at the scoreboard and you’re down 3-0. That’s not a good spot for us right now. That’s never a good spot but certainly not right now.”
Quinn’s injury apparently isn’t serious and that his absence is much more precaution than necessity.
“He just had a little, minor setback on his lower body injury, nothing significant, but we’re going to be smart with him, obviously,” Appert said. “We have four games this week and he hasn’t played a lot of hockey. I think Quinner is probably day to day. I think there is a good chance he probably plays over the weekend.”
There wasn’t an update on Malone. He was to speak with the media following the game but was being examined by the medical staff and wasn’t able to appear.
He scored the Amerks first goal, sweeping in a rebound on a power play at 14:15 of the second period.
The game Wednesday was his first since Dec. 19. He had missed a stretch just after the holiday break due to COVID-19 protocol and then it was determined he would require surgery on a lower-body ailment that had been become more difficult to deal with while playing.
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