Levi, Kulich carry Amerks into a tie for first place

By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA

Nearly 20 years have passed since the Rochester Americans have won a division title.

But with Wednesday’s 3-1 victory over the Toronto Marlies, they’re moving closer to hanging a banner next to the one earned by the 2004-05 team.

Jiri Kulich scored two more goals and goalie Devon Levi stopped 34 shots as the Amerks defeated the Toronto Marlies in front of 4,575 fans at Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial.

The victory pushed the Amerks into a tie with the Syracuse Crunch for the North Division lead at 85 points because the Crunch lost 2-1 in a shootout at Belleville.

Both teams have two games remaining – Rochester is home Friday with Cleveland and at Utica Sunday; the Crunch are at Utica Friday and home against the Comets on Saturday. The Amerks must finish ahead of Syracuse because the Crunch own the first tiebreaker, most regulation wins. Cleveland, with three games left, remains in the mix at 82 points.

But in winning on Wednesday, the Amerks are assured of finishing no lower than third, which means they avoid the best-of-three mini-round play-in series.

Still, there has been no repeated talk about the standings or a division title. In fact, coach Seth Appert contends there has been no talk.

“That’s important,” Appert said. “We haven’t once talked about that until I congratulated them for earning that tonight. A lot of them didn’t know.

“This group has done a really good job of keeping our focus on today. Just worry about today. It’s been like 26, 27 games like that, where we’re trying not to worry about standings, trying not to worry about the out of town scoreboard.”

Kulich opened the scoring against the Marlies 15:43 into the first period, converting a centering pass by Isak Rosen after Aleksandr Kisakov’s hustle down the left wing created the chance.

That was the only goal of the period, largely because of Levi’s stellar play. He stopped all 12 Toronto shots, 11 of which came in a six-plus-minute stretch between 8:29 and 14:42.

The Marlies did tie the score on Roni Hirvonen’s power-play goal at 12:20 of the second period, but Brandon Biro retaliated just 1:57 later with a short-handed goal off a perfect Rosen pass.

“It was a good play by Biro to put Rosie out to space (on the attack) and then Rosie outbattled some of the best players in the division – some older, stronger men – for that puck,” Appert said.

The game-breaking goal came just 87 seconds later as Kulich scored on a breakaway. Speeding up the right wing with Jeremy Davies starting out of the Amerks zone on the left side, Kulich let Davies’ pass go behind him and then off the boards, turning it into the perfect lead pass entering the zone.

“The play by Davies, to play it behind him and lay it out in space – it was the only way to get him that puck with limited risk,” Appert said.

Kulich said he actually was worried as he saw Davies ready to release the pass.

“I was concerned, I thought he was going to pass right on my tape,” Kulich said, well aware it probably would have been intercepted by Josiah Slavin.

Instead, Davies banked the pass off the right-wing boards and Kulich sped past Slavin, took the pass in stride and made a quick fake before roofing an in-tight shot to give the Amerks the 3-1 lead.

“If Davies tried to pass directly to him it would have had to go through defensemen’s sticks,” Appert said. “The finish by Kulich was exceptional; the pass by Davies was probably better.”

The second-year centerman has scored six goals in his past four games and eight in the past eight games, giving him 27 in 55 games. He scored 24 in 62 games as a rookie.

The Amerks held off the Marlies the rest of the way, though not necessarily with textbook defense.

“We struggled to break the puck out efficiently so we had to defend hard,” Appert said.

They made up for some of that sloppiness with a willingness to block shot after shot and make life a little easier on Levi.

“Blocking shots is contagious,” Appert said, “because it’s the worst thing to do because nobody wants to do it and it’s the most selfless thing to do. And the more guys that do it, it almost becomes a badge of honor. Then the next guy over the wall feels obligated to do it; if this guy’s blocking a shot for me, then I have to block a shot for him.”

Not that Levi necessarily needed the help. He was very sharp. Then again, it was the Marlies, so of course he was. He has faced Toronto three times and has allowed just four goals on 132 shots (52 saves in a 2-1 road win on Feb. 19, 42 saves in a 5-2 home win on March 15 and 34 saves on Wednesday).

“Levi was great as always,” Kulich said.