By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
You know the bar is high when, after managing to gain a point from a 3-2 overtime loss against your long-time rival and virtual equal in the standings, your coach blasts your performance.
Rightly so, mind you.
While the Rochester Americans overcame an early 2-0 deficit and took the Syracuse Crunch to overtime, their play from first puck drop right up until Phillippe Myers’ goal 32 seconds into overtime was maybe acceptable in November but certainly not in April.
“I thought we deserved to lose, I thought we were terrible,” Amerks coach Seth Appert said. “They played harder, smarter. We were not near our standard; not even close to good enough.”
As a result, the Amerks (33-25-6-3) are in the third place in the American Hockey League’s North Division at 75 points, two behind the Crunch (34-24-5-4) and one up on Utica. The Amerks play at Syracuse Friday and at Utica Saturday, so they’ll have a say in their fate before heading into the final week of the regular season.
It was one of the team’s few lousy performances since mid-Feburary, with Appert saying he liked the play of just one forward line – Kohen Olischefski, Brendan Warren and Filip Cederqvist.
But he assessment was based on how his team has been playing of late. The Amerks have earned 16 of a possible 22 points over the past 11 games.
“I think the standard is what they set,” Appert said. “We (as coaches) ask, we push, we prod, but they set the standard and they’ve set the standard very high over the last 20 games in terms of our commitment to playing winning hockey.”
But their minds weren’t as sharp on Wednesday. The effort was fine. The execution, not so much.
“When you turn that many pucks over, you have to work so hard to backcheck and defend, and you’re exhausted to try to go play offense,” Appert said. “And if you try to go play offense, you’re tired and usually make an even dumber decision.
“Our puck decisions were just incredibly poor and wreckless.”
Yet they were still in a position to win, in large part because of the play of goalie Malcolm Subban (27 saves).
Jack Finley and Ilya Usau scored in the first 4:38 as the Crunch vaulted to the 2-0 lead. But Linus Weissbach converted a Sean Malone centering pass at 9:42 of the first, then a now-healthy Brandon Biro scored a power-play goal 6:23 into the second period to tie it.
The Amerks then had a great opportunity to win the game in the final 8:14 of the third period when they had 3:48 of power play, including 12 seconds of 5-on-3 advantage.
Except the power play was powerless.
“We weren’t attacking the net,” said defenseman Lawrence Pilut, the power play quarterback at the point. “We have to focus on that and take every chance we can attacking the net.”
Said Appert: “When you play like that all night, your power play is going to be horrible. We’ve played great hockey for 20 games. The good thing is we played horribly and found a way to scratch out a point against one of the best teams in the league.”
I think that without a doubt, Syracuse is the better team, no matter what the outcome. #12 alone seemed to be on the ice all night. He’s pretty good!
Perhaps finishing 2nd or 3rd is not a good outcome for these Amerks. There is probably no way they can defeat Syracuse in a 5 game series. They simply are better constructed and more talented.
And thats not a knock on our guys.
We had several chances to steal this one. I counted at least 3 or 4 ‘sure goals’ our guys couldn’t finish. And in the 3rd period, when the Crunch completely took over the game, only Subban got us to OT. Our two back to back powerless plays with 8 minutes to go were an embarrassment. The team generated absolutely nothing..not hyperbole. Nothing at all.
Maybe though the most frustrating was the OT. We won the opening draw which is vital when you play 3 on 3. What did we do with it? We immediately had the puck stolen with some very poor execution. Then the Crunch waltzed into our zone uncontested and bing bing bing…it was in the net and Subban had zero chance to stop it. It wasn’t a fair fight.
Maybe the best part of last night was that the coach was not happy. That is a surprise because he rarely if ever has anything negative to say about his teams’ performance. His displeasure with the way his guys played might be the fire that has to be lit under them for Friday’s rematch. And while I doubt we can survive a 5 game series against them, we at least have one more chance to send a message that we will give it all we’ve got if that is to take place.
Props to our goalie for earning the point. But now let’s see how these guys respond in our two weekend games.
Ted agreed Syracuse the more talented team Amerks with a lot of young speedy guys but too green to beat Syracuse in a 5 game series that said I think we could beat anyone else in the division with the possible exception of Toronto but as it stands right now a first round matchup with Syracuse does not sound very appealing! As for the game itself the 3rd period I thought was beyond awful these guys looked like they hadn’t played with each other at all this year was good to see coach called out his team on this for a change! Friday is our last chance to gain some much needed confidence against what could be a first round opponent this team needs to badly have a killer instinct attack with speed(huge asset of these Amerks) and strong forechecks and go for a decisive win in regulation to try and tie them in the standings second place and home ice advantage needs to be the goal but equally important we need a dominant performance against Syracuse and some confidence against them going into the playoffs