Mersch, Levi shine as Amerks win, but Kulich leaves due to injury

By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA

For a significant portion of Friday’s night’s game, the Rochester Americans relied on Devon Levi’s big-save goaltending to keep them in it.

“Honestly, he was unreal, he made so many big-time saves,” center Tyson Kozak said.

But after the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins crept within a goal and were applying extra-attacker pressure in the final two minutes, the Amerks showed growth as a team by locking it down and scoring the clinching goal into an empty net.

Michael Mersch bulled his way out of the zone and drove the puck high off the glass in the neutral zone, then Linus Weissbach won a footrace for the puck deep into the Penguins zone and hit the empty net 77 seconds remaining to secure a 5-3 victory.

“It was one of those games where our captain (Mersch) willed us to a win,” Amerks coach Seth Appert said.

It was also a game where the Amerks may have suffered a significant loss. Leading goal-scorer Jiri Kulich, just one shift after ending a career-high 11-game goalless drought, suffered an injury.

He appeared to be hit in the head, perhaps by an elbow, from Jagger Joshua in open ice, far away from the puck. He was prone on the ice for a few minutes before needing assistance to get to the bench and down the tunnel to the dressing room. He did not return.

Appert said he did not see the hit and had no details of the severity of the injury.

Kulich’s goal had provided a 4-2 lead with 11:39 remaining. The Penguins cut the deficit to 4-3 at 10:12 but the Amerks held on as Levi finished with 41 saves.

“It was nice to see us close that out,” Mersch said. “You see growth as individuals and as a team.”

Mersch had been impactful earlier as well, scoring goals in the first and second periods. His mid-slot, mid-air deflection of Mason Jobst’s point shot gave the Amerks a 1-0 lead 3:09 into the first period. His second goal – on a wrister off the rush from the right circle – came 8:46 into the second period and tied the score 2-2.

The goals were a welcome sight for both Mersch and the Amerks. He had gone six games without a point and had just one goal in his past 11 games.

“It’s coming,” he said. “The last six, seven games have been a little down production-wise.”

Of course, his game is about more than just offense. He plays with energy, he plays the body and he’s vocal on the bench.

“The beauty of Merschie,” Appert said, “is he helps you win whether he scores or not.”

Like when the Penguins ramped up the late-game pressure with the Amerks clinging to the 4-3 lead. Mason Jobst was harassed from behind and was unable to clear the puck out of the Amerks zone.

But Mersch provide support, taking possession near the blue line, powering his way to center and then firing the puck high off the glass on the right wing boards.

The carom was perfect, not far enough for icing but to a position where Weissbach could win the race and score into the empty net.

“He’s a winner, Merschie’s a winner,” Appert said. “It was going to the safest spot, it wasn’t going to be a dangerous play.

“And then he’s smart enough to know he’s got Weissy with him on the other wing. You don’t know if he’s going to win the foot race but you put Weissy in a foot race and there’s a good chance he’s going to track that down.”

It’s not as though Weissbach just needed to beat defenseman Ty Smith to the puck near the end line, however. He needed to get position on Smith in order to play the puck.

“That was great puck battle win by Weissy,” Appert said. “That was not an easy empty-net goal. He had to cut the defenseman’s hands off and get inside position to score that goal, which was huge, because obviously they had a lot of pressure on us.”

Kozak scored the other goal for the Amerks, who improved to 23-16-5-1 while the Penguins dropped to 25-17-6-1.

While Mersch was named first star, Levi was a significant reason for the “W.”

“We weren’t good enough by any stretch and he was excellent, especially in the first 30 (minutes),” Appert said. “Credit to Wilkes, they were heavy, hard, physical and put us in some compromised spots and Levi steadied the ship for us.”