By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
Not long after the Rochester Americans headed off the ice and into the dressing room following a 3-2 shootout loss to the Toronto Marlies, the around-the-AHL scoreboard checking began.
“We have guys in the room telling us scores right away,” said forward Sean Malone, who scored both Amerks goals on Friday night in his return to the lineup.
Indeed, it’s that time of year, when not only do your own results matter, but so do the outcomes of four other teams in the North Division.
With just barely a tenth of a percentage point separating the Laval Rocket, Martlies, Amerks, Syracuse Crunch and Belleville Senators going into Friday night, playoff berths and playoff positioning may very well not be decided until the final week, which is the final week of April.
“Every single game’s important,” Malone said. “You don’t want to be on the other side of it with five games to go.”
After Friday, the Amerks remain in fourth place with a 30-23-4-3 record, 66 points and, most importantly, a .558 points-earned percentage with 16 games remaining. Laval is at .574, Toronto .571, Syracuse at .550 and Belleville at .545.
Because teams won’t play an equal number of games (the Amerks and Crunch play 76, the Marlies, Rocket and Senators play 72), the standings are based on the points-earned percentage. In the North, the top five teams qualify.
“That’s just how it’s going to be, checking the standings every day,” Malone said.
There also will be some “what ifs,” especially after Friday night.
What if Mark Jankowski had scored from point blank range 3:43 into the third period to provide a 3-1 lead? Instead, Marlies goalie Michael Hutchinson made the two-pad stack, blocked the shot and, off the ensuing faceoff, Toronto’s Bobby McMann raced the other way to score the tying goal.
What if Ryan MacInnis had scored on his short-handed breakaway at 5:02 with a chance to break that 2-2 tie? Instead, Hutchinson denied him and neither team could score again in regulation or overtime.
In fact, only Toronto’s Joey Anderson scored in the shootout, which the Marlies won 1-0. Jack Quinn, Arttu Ruotsalainen and JJ Peterka all were stopped by Hutchinson.
“This was two good teams playing each other in late March with playoff positioning on the line,” Amerks coach Seth Appert said.
“Probably the biggest point in the game is we had the opportunity to finish a play to put us up 3-1 and credit to Hutchinson, who made an unbelievable save. Ten seconds later they come down and score. That was a big swing.”
McMann was able to score while falling and while fighting off defenseman Josh Teves in the deep left of the slot. He somehow lifted the puck high past goalie Ukka-Pekka Luukkonen on the short side.
It could be argued that if Luukkonen stays big and is simply in a butterfly, the puck can’t go in because the McMann has no options but to shoot short side.
Appert, however, chose to rewind the video a little farther to when the Amerks allowed Toronto to break out of the zone.
“You probably would like to see him stay strong on the strong side, at Upie’s size, and eat that,” Appert said. “But that was also a really good finish. It wasn’t like that went in the middle of the net; that went under the crossbar. I certainly don’t fault him for that.
“I’m more discouraged that we won a faceoff and then we turned one over and let them have that chance. That was the issue on the play.”
The good news from Friday is that Malone and MacInnis both played a regular shift and were fine. Malone had played just one game since Dec. 19, that being March 9 when he aggravated his lower-body injury and needed to take another two weeks off.
MacInnis hadn’t played since Jan. 29 because of a lower body injury. He, together with Malone and Michael Mersch, formed the Amerks best line on Friday, Appert said.
The Amerks play at Syracuse (imagine that) on Saturday and return home to play Bridgeport at 3:05 p.m. Sunday. It the second to last three-game-in-three-nights set they’ll play this season.
Kevin–the coach’s unusually short post game and his body language indicated to me he wasn’t at all happy with the way the team played last night. Rightly so. The ‘big guns’ were missing in action. And while the coach religiously defends UPL, he failed us yet again. When you lead at home in the 3rd period, your goalie MUST make the big saves. He didn’t. Their guy did. He kept them in the game, then he stopped all 5 in OT (UPL faced no shots) and finally he stopped all 3 in the shootout, while UPL gave one up on the first shot.
Amerks, if they make post season, will go nowhere with the kind of goaltending UPL is giving them. His stats are terrible, near the bottom in both GAA and save percentage. And its not how many to give up, its when you give them up. He has been particularly bad defending leads in the 3rd period.
Granted, our ‘d’ leaves a lot to be desired, but last nights loss was a big blow.
Toronto let us know that when it really counts, they have our number.
We have to beat Syracuse tonite and I fear that unless the team regroups and plays a much better game, we could find ourselves in 6th at the end of the night. Last night was a big test for the guys and they flunked. Our lousy play at home isn’t helping either. The two crazy wins against Cleveland can be attributed to THEIR terrible goaltending. We were outplayed in both games.
Its put up or shut up time for these Amerks. They let one get away last night but they can’t afford to screw this one up. We have put Syracuse back in the hunt. Now its time to take it away from them. Problem is, I wonder if they can??