Losing was not an option for the Rochester Amerks Friday night at Blue Cross Arena.
Having already dropped Game 1, and facing the difficult task of playing the rest of their best-of-five North Division finals series at Laval next week, there was simply no way the Amerks could afford to lose Game 2.
Sure, a couple years ago they lost the first two games to Syracuse and rallied to win the series, but the chances of that happening against the Rocket – who led the AHL with 101 regular-season points this season – seemed pretty miniscule.
The challenge remains tough, but their 5-3 victory now gives them a legitimate chance to go up north and get it done, especially if they play the way they did in this one as a crowd of 9,126 roared from start to finish.
“Really proud of the group,” Amerks coach Michael Leone said. “I thought from start to finish, I thought we were really tilting the ice. I thought we were just skating, playing with pace, pressuring the puck. Unbelievable effort from everybody on both sides of the puck. They battle and at this time of year, you need dogs. We’ve got a bunch of those guys and we’ve got a bunch of selfless hockey players.”
After a thrilling, up-and-down opener Wednesday which saw five lead changes, the last of which gave the Rocket a 5-4 victory, Game 2 was every bit as frenetic across the full 60 minutes and it was decided with 7:53 left in the third period on a gorgeous goal by Jiri Kulich, who joined the team after the parent Buffalo Sabres’ season ended once again short of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
“You watch the NHL playoffs, you need your best players to be your best players,” Amerks coach Michael Leone said.
And that’s what Kulich was after he had endured a somewhat frustrating night when he was unable to cash in on a few scoring chances.
The Amerks were on a power play which goalie Devon Levi stole with a fine acting job in his crease which drew a goalie interference penalty. Kyle Clague got the puck down to Lukas Rousek in the left corner and he feathered a seeing-eye pass through traffic to Kulich who one-timed it while going down to a knee and the bullet beat Laval goalie Jacob Fowler who was screened by Josh Dunne.
“To be honest, not at all,” Kulich said when asked if he was surprised the pass got through to him from Rousek. “From my first year, I know to just give him the puck and I’ll find a hole. So I was not surprised. He was passing to me from down on the other side so I just had to make sure it’s a bomb.”
It was a bomb all right, and it was also an NHL-worthy goal, scored by an NHL player who cut his professional teeth helping the Amerks to a couple of playoff runs and hopes to do it again. Kulich could have gone to the World Championship tournament once the Sabres were done, but the decision was made for him to come to Rochester to continue accruing valuable experience in a playoff atmosphere.
“Yeah, I guess that’s why I’m here, to help the team win, and to be honest, I’m still not good enough, so I have to do a bit more,” he said.
Well, he did enough Friday.
Here’s what happened in the game:
The Amerks came out flying and put immediate pressure on the Rocket, and that set the tone for a fast and furious opening 20 minutes.
That early push by Rochester was thwarted when Riley Fiddler-Schultz was called for a ticky-tack slash, but the Amerks killed off the penalty as Levi made three saves including a one-timer by Alex Barre-Boulet from his office in the right wing circle.
Forty seconds after that kill, Rochester went on a power play and right off a faceoff win by Josh Dunne the puck squirted back to Clague at the left point. He backed his way to the middle of the ice before uncorking a slapshot that beat Fowler low glove side at 5:58, just six seconds into the man advantage.
Clague scored 10 goals in 69 regular-season games, but he has now scored one in each of Rochester’s five postseason games.
The Amerks had two great chances to go up 2-0 as Noah Ostlund forced a turnover at the Amerks blue line and sent Isak Rosen in for a breakaway but he really didn’t get off a quality shot. And then while shorthanded, Tyler Kozak out-worked two Rockets for a loose puck and broke in alone but Fowler came up big again.
Laval tied it at 13:49 when Barre-Boulet took a cross crease pass from Adam Engstrom, moved around Mike Rathbone and backhanded the puck toward the crease where Laurent Dauphin was able to steer it past Levi. However, the Amerks needed just 34 seconds to regain the lead when Rosen deflected a shot from the blue line by Ryan Johnson at 14:23 that Fowler had no chance on.
Rochester narrowly missed going up 3-1 but Kulich broke in alone 90 seconds into the period and fired wide, the third missed breakaway attempt of the game for the Amerks.
Laval then caught a huge break at 4:41 to get even at 2-2 as Zach Metsa tried to clear the zone and his pass hit the skate of Luke Tuch – brother of Buffalo Sabre Alex Tuch – and it caromed right to Lucas Condotta who was all alone in front to beat Levi who couldn’t get over in time.
Levi made a nice save in tight against Logan Mailloux to keep it tied, but less than a minute later at 13:14, he allowed a knuckleball to get past him. Laval’s Owen Beck fanned on a shot with the puck caroming off Konsta Helenius and sliding into the right circle where Zach Davidson also half-fanned, but his floater somehow found its way past Levi.
Late in the period, the Amerks put heavy pressure on and it finally paid off in the tying goal by Rousek with 40 seconds left. During a 4-on-4 situation Rosen had a great chance from the slot and then Jack Rathbone rang a shot off the crossbar. Once the penalties expired, the Amerks went back to work and when Metsa fired a shot from up high, Rousek drove to the net and was able to backhand a rebound past Fowler.
The Amerks came inches away from taking the lead back two minutes into the third as a shot by Kozak dribbled through Fowler and was sitting right on the goal line before David Reinbacher was able to sweep it away, and video replay confirmed it was the right call.
Midway through the period Kulich had another good opportunity foiled by Fowler, and the rebound went to Rosen who missed the net with plenty to shoot at.
After the Kulich goal, the Rocket could not get anything working on offense as the Amerks locked it down, and Rosen put the game away with an empty net goal with nine seconds remaining.
“I thought we played great,” Leone said. “When we skate and we play with pace, we can overwhelm teams with our speed, and I think you saw that tonight. We believe in our group. We believe we’re a better hockey team and that’s every guy. I don’t care what the record is, we’ve played a lot of really good hockey against this team and it was good to be on the right side this time.”
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, he has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
