By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
On this Valentine’s Day of hockey, the Rochester Americans were definitely lovers, not fighters.
Riding a six-game winning streak during which they used their high-powered offense to overwhelm opponents, the Amerks were given a stiff dose of reality by the Syracuse Crunch on Friday night.
The Crunch were intent on discouraging the Amerks with their size and physicality and it worked, which is why they rolled to a 5-1 victory in front of 5,846 fans at Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial.
Some games you lose and you don’t necessarily deserve to, Amerks forward Josh Dunne said.
“We deserved to lose this one,” he said.
No one would disagree. Certainly not coach Michael Leone.
“We were terrible; we were soft, we didn’t compete,” Leone said. “You have to hit, you can’t just skill your way to five goals.”
Which is why the Amerks (29-13-3-162 points)) scored just once, a short-handed goal by Dunne late in the first period that tied the score 1-1.
And while the scoreboard said the game was even, it wasn’t. The Crunch (20-16-7-4, 51 points) dominated through physicality and speed, which is why the ended up with a 3-1 lead after two periods.
“I have to do a better job to get them to understand when you play certain teams, it’s going to be a track meet,” Leone said. “We probably lost every 50/50 puck off the faceoff.
“I just know what happened out there wasn’t good enough.”
There was no argument from his players, either.
“I just didn’t think we got to our game at all,” captain Mason Jobst said. “Give them credit, they played to their identity and we didn’t.
“That’s just not going to get it done in this division, against anyone.”
That was evident early, when Jack Finley powered his way into the slot and steered a Scott Walford centering pass past goalie Devon Levi 6:43 into the first period.
Dunne then tied the score with a short-handed goal at 14:46. Anton Wahlberg attacked on right wing before slipping a pass between Gage Goncalves and Derrick Pouliot for Dunne in the left of the slot.
With his momentum already moving him left to right, he continued across the slot and had an empty net for seventh goal and the Amerks ninth short-handed goal (only the Charlotte Checkers have scored more, 12).
But the idea the game was tied was more illusion than reality. The Amerks couldn’t create anything resembling sustained offensive zone pressure.
“When the game got hard, we didn’t respond,” Leone said.
Dylan Duke’s 14th goal put the Crunch back on top 5:57 into the second period. He was free in the left of the slot to one-time home a pass from Logan Brown.
The deficit became 3-1 for the Amerks with just 35.5 seconds remaining in the period, when Conor Sheary scored his 12th, firing home a shot from the left of the slot.
Brown scored the only two goals in the third period, off a Jesse Ylonen pass at 11:25 before scoring an inconsequential empty-net goal with 2:04 remaining.
“Our compete wasn’t to our standards,” Dunne said. “They won the battles, the races, the faceoffs.”
And, as a result, the game – in convincing fashion.
Glad to hear that the coach was disgusted with the performance. We knew after the first 6 minutes that Amerks didn’t come to play. Sometimes you can tell early on whether a team wants to pay the price.
While its hard to totally trash a team that has been playing so well, it is true that you can’t take nights off, especially now, and especially against Syracuse…a team that likes to break our hearts and who uses its size speed and toughness to wear us down. it was men against boys last night in front of one of our smallest Friday crowds of the season.
But the important thing now is to flush this one quickly and take it out on Utica..and also Laval who comes in Sunday. Can’t let a stinker like this one linger or begin a losing streak. The guys know they laid a big egg so they also know what has to be done to correct things.
But watching our guys get dominated like that last night was painful. There was nothing good about the game from the goalie on out. No one played well. A total team non-effort. And if you want to be a Cup contender, this can’t happen.
(I’m pretty sure the Laval coach had the same words for his team earlier in the week when Belleville shocked them 5-0…and Laval will be off until Sunday when they come to town to play an Amerks team that will be tired…but hopefully angry)
AHL hates the 3 in 3’s now but I recall vividly when we used to play 15 or 16 of them every season…home Friday, away Saturday and home again Sunday. And I also recall that very little was said about that scheduling. It was accepted. Back then when the NHL was 6 teams, games were played Wed and Thurs; then Sat and Sunday…only. Teams would often ride the same train for home and homes on Sat-Sun. Living in Montreal we never got to see Toronto on the weekend because both teams played home on Saturday night. Chicago and Bobby Hull was the hottest ticket at the Forum back then. Ah memories.
Ted, Back in the 1960’s ,The Quebec Aces generally hosted opposing teams in 2 game sets.On Tuesday and Thursday nights.
Rich–remember it well. We sometimes went to Le Colisee to watch the Amerks when they came to town. ( i was a student at McGill in the 60’s)
So Amerks played poorly again Saturday. However the hockey gods smiled down on them and our guys stole one. With Amerks generating nothing at all for the 2nd straight game, coach called a timeout with 3:13 remaining and then pulled the goalie. To me this was a challenge to see if the team could show some life since they hadn’t had any sustained pressure in the O-zone all night.
On this night it worked. Amerks won the faceoff and kept the puck in Utica’s zone until Rosen finally found the back of the net half minute later. Then in OT, Ostlund drew a penalty and eventually after over a minute of cycling the puck Ostlund blasted one by the Utica goalie for the most improbable (but very important) win. Sometimes you win one you probably didn’t deserve to win. And Utica has to be wondering what it will take to beat the Amerks this season…9th loss in the 10 games played so far.
Ugly win, but yeah we’ll take it for sure.