By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
Just four weeks remain in the American Hockey League season, which means games are beginning to have a post-season feel.
There’s little razzle-dazzle, because there’s little open ice. Teams don’t trade chances from opening faceoff to final buzzer because they’re trading body checks instead. A mistake in the first period can be the difference between winning and losing.
Which the Rochester Americans learned on Friday night.
A blatantly bad turnover led to a goal by former Amerk C.J. Smith in the game’s 13th minute and the Charlotte Checkers and goalie Kaapo Kahkonen played lock-down defense the rest of the way, defeating the Amerks 2-1 at Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial.
“That really turned into a playoff game really quick,” said center Josh Dunne, who scored the Amerks lone goal a fraction of a second before the game ended. “The margin (for error) gets smaller and smaller and smaller this time of year and it’s good for us to learn from that.”
They’ve had plenty of lessons over the past three weeks. The Amerks, second in the North Division with a 35-18-3-3 record and 76 points, have played seven consecutive one-goal games and are 1-4-0-2 in that stretch. For the season, they have lost 14 of 25 games decided by one goal.
Friday’s loss, in front of 6,560 fans, boiled down to two plays. One came early and it led to Smith converting a Matt Kiersted pass off a two-on-one fast break 12:35 into the game.
The goal came moments after Amerks defenseman Erik Brannstrom inadvertently passed the puck right to Kiersted in the neutral zone. Brannstrom was unaware that Kiersted was stepping out of the penalty box as an Amerks power play was ending and essentially made a tape-to-tape pass.
“We made a bad play on the power play,” Amerks coach Michael Leone said.
Deciding play No. 2 came with 5:36 to play. That’s when Dunne barreled to the net with the puck and either he or Jagger Joshua pushed a rebound into the net.
But referee Casey Terreri blew his whistle before the puck crossed the line and ruled that Dunne, or Joshua, interfered with Kahkonen.
Leone thought the goal should have counted. “I think it was just a continuation play,” he said. “But they ruled no goal on the ice so it was no goal.”
Dunne, who was prone on the ice during the scramble, said he watched the replay and even he wasn’t sure if the puck legally crossed the line.
“The ref thought it was under his pad,” Dunne said. “I couldn’t even tell from the top (camera) angle.”
The fans were boisterous in voicing their disapproval as play resumed. The Amerks pulled goalie Devon Levi for an extra attacker with 1:46 remaining, a tactic that has worked often this year, including in last Friday’s 4-3 shootout win over Providence.
But this time Smith broke up a Lukas Rousek pass intended for Isak Rosen in the Charlotte zone and the Checkers turned the interception into the clinching empty net goal by John Leonard with 59.3 seconds remaining.
“We’ve been good in those situations,” Leone said, “but they did a good job taking away ‘Rosie’ on the back side.”
Dunne’s ninth goal of the season came essentially as time expired, sparing the Amerks from being shut out for a fourth time.
Aptly named
As far as Leone is concerned, Charlotte definitely lives up to the name on the sweater.
“They check as good as any team in the league,” he said.
Powerless power play
The Amerks went 0-for-5 with the man advantage, a statistic that is rather glaring in a one-goal game.
They are just 5-for-37 (13.5 percent) over the past nine games.
“In games like this, a 1-0 game, we need the power play to step up,” Leone said. “The execution just wasn’t there.”
Charlotte goalie was incredible made about 4 saves that had a very good probability of going in. Also, thought the potential tying goal was a good goal, these kind of calls have seemingly gone against the Amerks more often then not of late. This all said I think there were portions of the game that were embarrassingly bad. Power play was awful, Charlotte had more chances than the Amerks on the Amerks man advantage it seemed. Also, team lacked hustle and grit getting outmuscled and losing too many puck battles. Brannstrom who might be the best veteran who can be a difference maker Amerks have acquired in the past few decades had his first bad game as an Amerk. Empty net goal wasn’t a forgone conclusion a lack of hustle and compete made it too easy. Inexcusable this time of year, especially on home ice. Amerks suddenly in a goal scoring drought, time to make some changes for tonight’s game. Warren has now taken 2 untimely penalties late in the third in the offensive zone in the past few games and provided zero offense. Is kisakov still here? While Warren might be a better all around player we are severely lacking offense of late I don’t think swapping Warren for kisakov would be a bad move for tonight. Also, as evidenced by our indecisive anemic power play last night we need the defense to shoot the puck more. I would use Prow (sometimes a defensive liability but always good offensively) and take out someone from our way too tentative defense could be anyone other then Rathbone or Brannstrom!
Kevin–you were being very decent to the Amerks for not really blasting their latest sluggish effort. From our perch, in section 222, it was a horrible performance start to finish. (as fans, we get to say that!!) Amerks have suddenly stopped playing with the desperation and grit they had prior to this month. The goal that was called off was a miserable call by the ref. The league REALLY needs to get out of the stone age and allow video challenges when blatantly bad calls are made.
Having said that, it should never have come down to that play. The power play was disgraceful. Did we have even 2 shots on goal for 5 PP’s? Charlotte sure did.
Something is wrong with the team right now and the last 7 games is enough of a sample size to recognize that changes have to be made, if we are to win a game in postseason.
Brannstrom was really bad last night. Wahlberg has totally disappeared..he was falling and whiffing and just making one bad play after another. Rosen and Ostlund were complete non-factors. Rousek is the epitome of frustration. He simply refuses to shoot the puck…ever. It was a very un-fun game to watch. Yeah the score was close, but the Amerks weren’t in it at all. Play was in our end way too much. Warren with 2 very bad o-zone penalties in last 2 games.
Too late in the season for this sort of thing. A loss to Syracuse tonite and Amerks may suddenly start to scramble for any kind of decent playoff seeding. When your last 6 losses were all low scoring 1 goal decisions, it doesn’t mean you are playing tough; it means you aren’t playing well enough to earn W’s.
thats who the Amerks currently are. Who is going to man-up and be accountable for this mess?