Amerks step up big-time to eliminate Utica, move on in the playoffs

By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA

UTICA – With their season on the brink of ending on Thursday night, the Rochester Americans not only stared down elimination and didn’t blink, they ran it full force into the end boards, refusing to lose on the road to the regular season division champions.

Trailing by a goal heading into the third period, the Amerks scored twice early in a span of 3 minutes, 23 seconds, then played an ultra-sound, ultra-smart game down the stretch until Mark Jankowski clinched victory with an empty net goal at 18:59.

When the final buzzer sounded, a jubilant Amerks team mobbed goalie Aaron Dell and celebrated the 4-2 series-clinching victory over the Utica Comets in front of 3,917 fans at the sold-out Adirondack Bank Center. The Amerks won the series 3-2.

“Pure joy, excitement, relief … everything,” said winger Brett Murray, who was the target of an Arttu Ruotsalainen pass that caromed past goalie Nico Daws to tie the score 2-2 just 3:22 into the the third period.

“I didn’t want to go home,” Murray said. “No one wanted to go home.”

And now they won’t. They’ll instead head to Laval, Quebec, to play the Rocket in the best-of-five North Division finals.

“There was never a doubt in our locker room,” said center Sean Malone, whose snap shot from 35 feet out in the right of the slot zipped past Daws for the winning goal 6:45 into the third period.

The series begins on the road with Games 1 and 2 Sunday and Monday. Games 3 and 4 are in Rochester on Wednesday and Friday, with Game 5, if necessary, in Laval on Sunday, May 29.

Remember, this is a franchise that hadn’t won a playoff game since 2014, and hadn’t won a playoff series since 2005. Now they’ve knocked off Belleville and Utica and are moving even deeper in the Calder Cup tournament.

And to think this was a team that didn’t clinch the American Hockey League’s final playoff berth until the final day of the regular season, and did so only because Belleville defeated Toronto on April 30, a day after the Amerks had played their final game.

Now that they’re in, they have no intention of stopping early.

“Guys just wanted it more tonight,” said defenseman Casey Fitzgerald, who scored the game’s first goal and helped set up the second. “You can tell, guys on this team, they’ll do anything for the guy next to them and that’s a special thing.”

Indeed, Amerks coach Seth Appert has talked all season about how this is no ordinary team, that there’s a strong bond within the group.

“They love playing for each other, they love playing for Rochester,” Appert said.

They also showed they love winning. While the Amerks scored first on Fitzgerald’s goal 9:10 into the game, the Comets answered with goals by Fabian Zetterlund at 10:32 and Alexander Holtz just 49 seconds later.

But despite the quick-strike retaliation, the Amerks didn’t panic.

“I especially liked the way we weathered the storm after they scored two quick ones,” Appert said.

Neither team scored in the second period, but the Amerks were the better team, and they knew it.

“We didn’t want our season to be over,” Fitzgerald said. “When you have a special team like this, you just want to keep playing.”

The comeback began early, with the Amerks turning a Tace Thompson slashing penalty into the tying goal. Ruotsalainen was given credit for the goal. Appert thought Murray deflected it in but Ruotsalainen’s pass may have instead hit the skate of defenseman Tyler Wotherspoon.

“It went in, that’s all that matters,” Murray said.

Buoyed by the momentum from the goal, the Amerks continued to pressure the Comets. Just 3:23 after the tying goal was scored, Malone gave the Amerks the lead with a fastbreak goal.

Unheralded first-year winger Lukas Rousek corralled defenseman Jimmy Schuldt’s 50-foot Josh Allen-like aerial strike out at the Utica blue line and waited for Malone, the trailer, to reach the zone.

Malone then used defenseman Michael Vukojevic as a screen and sent his shot into the lower left of the net.

The Comets ramped up the pressure in an attempt to tie the score but the Amerks held them off.

The defensive-zone play was exponentially better than it was in Tuesday’s 4-2 Game 4 loss on home ice, with Schuldt making the definitive play of the series with just over a minute to play.

Comets winger A.J. Greer, the leading scorer in the series with 6 goals and 2 assists and a battering ram in the offensive zone, tried to move out the right corner during the extra-attacker final onslaught.

But Schuldt gained position and drove him to the boards and off the puck, enabling Jankowski to sweep in, grab the puck and fire it 180 feet into the empty net.

“He wasn’t going to let Greer around him,” Appert said of Schuldt. “The more Jimmy feels like he’s playing for a team and he feels like he’s in it with a group, the better he’s going to be, because he’s all team, all the time.”

No goals for Quinn, but goals aren’t everything

Jack Quinn, the AHL’s Rookie of the Year after producing 26-35-61 in just 45 regular season games, hasn’t scored a goal in seven playoff games, and scored just one in the final eight games of the regular season.

But he was robbed late in the first period by Daws, a chance that came about after he flattened 6-6, 240-pound defenseman Kevin Bahl behind the net.

“That young man went to battle and he didn’t just have hits, he had some big hits,” Appert said. “He helped us win a series without scoring.”

Said Malone: “When you’re an offensive player, you’re going to get your points in half the games or a little more than half. It’s really the other games that decide what kind of player you are.”

Holmstrom, Boka make playoff debuts

With captain Michael Mersch still unable to play, Ben Holmstrom replaced Ryan Scarfo and defenseman Nick Boka replaced defenseman Josh Teves but played forward.

Appert praised both, Boka for his physicality in a limited role and Holmstrom for the poise he displayed all game.

Mersch present in spirit and in person

Mersch remains out after a check to his head by Utica’s Robbie Russo in Game 3. He did make the trip to Utica with the team, however, and team even had his sweater hanging in the dressing room.

“We kept him in mind in the third period,” Malone said.

They also had a little fun in the room before the game.

“We joked that it was a little memorial for him and we all touched his jersey,” Malone said.

Endless physicality

Utica is certainly a bigger team and uses the body effectively. But the Amerks were the more physical team on Thursday, and the knew they needed to be.

“The team that dictated the physical play won each game of the series,” Appert said.

Kevin’s 3 stars, sponsored by Salvatore’s Old Fashioned Pizzeria

1 Sean Malone, Amerks … Winning goal on a perfect shot, strong in all zones.

2 Brett Murray, Amerks … A beast once again on the wall and in front of the net.

3. Jimmy Schuldt, Amerks … Rock solid in his own end, key play to create clinching empty-net goal.