ROCHESTER – A few Amerks were still catching their breath from another drill Tuesday afternoon in Blue Cross Arena when their coach, Seth Appert, told the group to gather around the blue line for a quick chat to conclude practice.
Appert began with a compliment. He lauded his team for the work ethic it had shown before and after practices this season. Rochester was pushing to reach the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup Playoffs for a third consecutive spring because every player on the roster, no matter their professional experience, worked tirelessly on the ice and in the weight room, he explained.
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Then, Appert told them to prioritize working smart. Each of the remaining eight games on their schedule, continuing Wednesday night with a home game against the Cleveland Monsters, was too important for players to burn themselves out.
The Amerks’ fourth-year coach continued by issuing a reminder: Don’t talk about the North Division standings. They rallied in March with a 9-3-1 record to take over third place – five of the seven teams qualified, with the No. 4 and 5 seeds facing each other in a preliminary round – but only 12 points separate first-place Syracuse from last-place Belleville. Rochester can’t afford to play distracted when each game holds playoff implications.
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“I don’t want us fixated on it,” Appert told The Buffalo News. “I don’t want us looking ahead. I don’t want us looking at out-of-town scoreboards because you don’t control that stuff. I believe when you start worrying about things out of your control, you stop taking care of things that are in your control. What’s in our control is how good we are today in practice, how competitive, how dialed in, how detailed we are to put us in the best position to win one game (Wednesday night).”
Most of the players gathered around Appert were in a similar situation last year when Rochester didn’t secure the second seed in the North Division until the regular-season finale in Cleveland. A loss could have forced the Amerks into the play-in round. They eliminated Syracuse in the first round and ousted Toronto in the second before losing to eventual Calder Cup champion Hershey in the Eastern Conference final.
Some of the Amerks were teenagers still learning how to win in the AHL. Jiri Kulich and Isak Rosen, for example, aren’t playing sheltered minutes this season like they did at times as rookies. Appert is using the first-round draft picks in a variety of situations when the game is on the line. They’ve experienced growing pains through the process, particularly after their brief time with the Sabres in late November.
They’ve been exceptional for at least a month, though. Even though the production hasn’t been there each night, Rosen and Kulich have paired improved defense with a more mature approach in the offensive zone. They were creating scoring chances in bunches before they finally broke through.
Rosen, a 21-year-old winger, has five goals and 12 points in his last 14 games. For the season, he has 16 goals and 40 points in 59 games. Kulich, whom Buffalo drafted 28th overall in 2022, has five goals and 14 points in his last 17 games. He’s finally overcome the fatigue that accumulated over the past 12 months, particularly the grueling travel that accompanied his outstanding IIHF World Junior Championship that ended in January with him captaining Czechia to a bronze medal.
They’ve been difference-makers as the Amerks have earned points in 22 of their last 30 games dating to Jan. 17. And they’re part of an experienced roster that features Michael Mersch, Brett Murray, Linus Weissbach, Brandon Biro, Mason Jobst and Justin Richards. But Appert has demanded that Rosen and Kulich take more ownership of the team’s success, an important next step in their development.
“It’s so fun to play a lot and be a leader,” said Rosen, who was drafted 14th overall in 2021. “Apps talks to Kuli and me every day that we have to be leaders for this team, and I think we’re starting to really be that every game, every night. I think that’s the hardest thing too for us when we have that bullseye on us to find it every night. That’s the hardest thing and I think we’ve started doing that. For both of us, we need to play hard every shift and be leaders.”
As captain, Mersch is the pulse of the Amerks. He, along with alternate captain Ethan Prow, organized team activities early in the season to try to build the camaraderie that is forged through triumphs and tumult. Rochester has players from five different countries – the United States, Canada, Russia, Czechia and Sweden – and ensuring each one is comfortable was a priority as they prepared for the long march toward the playoffs.
The number of rookies has grown and will continue to do so. The Amerks have five in their dressing room: Viktor Neuchev, Ryan Johnson, Nikita Novikov, Anton Wahlberg and Zach Metsa. Devon Levi is expected to be their starting goalie when the playoffs begin, plus the Sabres will add top prospects Noah Ostlund and Matt Savoie to Rochester’s roster if their seasons end in time.
One key to the club’s success, Mersch said, is re-establishing what has made the Amerks successful in their past two playoff runs. He echoed Appert’s sentiment that watching the standings isn’t the solution.
“It sounds cliché, but we have to stick to what we do here and focus on getting better,” said Mersch. “Welcome everybody and create an environment where guys feel they have a chance to get better and succeed and help the team. We’ve been pushing here, but we have to stick with it. There are still eight games left and our division is tight. You try to play playoff hockey this time of year to make the playoffs and make a push.”
The rookies who have been on the team since opening night, Neuchev and Novikov in particular, have been key cogs in the Amerks’ growth this season. Offense wasn’t Rochester’s issue when the schedule began in October, but, as Appert recalled Tuesday, the club’s defensive game was “atrocious.”
Second-year players were adjusting to new roles. Rookies were introduced to the grind of the AHL. Improvement wasn’t made overnight. There were difficult one-on-one meetings with Appert and/or his assistant coaches, Vinny Prospal and Nathan Paetsch, and countless hours working with their strength coach, Nick Craven.
Among the 396 players to appear in 1,000 career NHL regular-season games since the league’s inception in 1917-18, only Skinner hasn’t experienced the triumph and tumult of playoff hockey.
Neuchev has eight goals and 21 points in his last 27 games. The Russian winger was a second-round pick of the Sabres in 2021. Novikov is a 6-foot-3 defenseman who has brought physicality to a defense corps that’s led by Prow, Youngstown native Joe Cecconi and Jeremy Davies.
Neuchev and Novikov have shown significant improvement during the second half of the season, like Kulich and Rosen did a year ago. They’ve played key roles to help the Amerks earn 16 regulation wins since New Year’s Day after they had only five from Oct. 13 through Dec. 30.
“I’d say that we’ve just been on this kind of slow, steady march towards trying to be a team that’s hard to play against in our own way,” Appert explained. “We’re not the biggest team, but for us, being hard to play against is taking time and space away from our opponent when they have the puck because that’s the way we can force more turnovers than we tend to with physicality, but we’re pretty physical. We’re a team that wants to pressure, force turnovers and attack. We kept gradually getting better at it.”
The turnaround can be traced to February, when the Amerks were approaching a possible make-or-break stretch in their schedule. They were winless in five of their previous seven games and about to play seven games in 11 days, including road trips to Utica, Toronto and Hershey. It was conceivable that playing poorly in those two weeks could have dropped Rochester too far down in the standings for it to rally.
To motivate and prepare players, Appert decided to frame it as a best-of-seven playoff series. He didn’t care that Rochester was facing five different opponents. It was an opportunity to prepare everyone on the roster for a postseason push. The Amerks responded with a 3-2-2 record and, according to Appert, the 11 days galvanized his players and shifted their focus on what it takes to win games late in the season.
Practices in Rochester are structured to make players uncomfortable. Appert doesn’t want prospects to ease into the workout, so the Amerks typically start with a physical, small-area game. If the pace isn’t high enough, he’ll bang his stick against the glass. When rookie goalie Scott Ratzlaff took too long of a water break Tuesday, Appert chirped, “Let’s go Ratzy! We practice fast here.”
There’s a focus on competitiveness and forcing young players to solve chaotic situations. Winning puck battles is a priority. Angling drills are used to prepare everyone, no matter their age or strength, to gain possession and get to offense.
“I want the young guys, especially the young forwards, to come on the ice doing this for 15 minutes and think they can go 70 percent in practice,” said Appert, motioning a casual stickhandling move to demonstrate his point. “It’s on. And if you’re not on, you’re going to get exposed by your teammates and you’re going to lose.”
The Amerks are 33-22-9 and, according to the AHL, need nine of 16 remaining standings points to clinch a playoff spot. It won’t be long before Blue Cross Arena is filled.
The experience last season was eye-opening to first-year players and will have the same effect on prospects like Wahlberg, a 2023 second-round draft pick who made his North American pro debut last week. Before they can try to push further than they did last spring, the Amerks are determined to finish strong in a division where each opponent is talented enough to win in the postseason.
“We’re a really young team,” Rosen noted. “It’s a long season and for the new guys this year, they’re starting to figure things out a little bit and we’re doing that as a team now, too. All the experience from last year, we have a lot of guys back, and the trust we have for each other in these big games.
“These games already feel like playoff games and that’s the best time of the year. … We’ve been playing really good and we have to keep doing that because our division is still tight.”