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Archive for April, 2009

Amerks Defeat Marlies in Overtime

April 8, 2009 - By

The Rochester Americans defeated the Toronto Marlies in overtime on Wednesday night by the final score of 5-4.  Randal Gelech scored the game winning goal at 1:53 in overtime, assisted by Stefan Meyer.  Due to other commitments (sons hockey practice), I didn’t get the chance to watch or listen to the game, so here’s the recap from Amerks.com:

Rochester, April 8… The eighth and final meeting between the Rochester Americans and the Toronto Marlies proved to be a battle as the Amerks came out on top of and back-and-fourth game in overtime. The Toronto Maple Leafs affiliate out-shot the Amerks all game long (31-18), but the successes were in the Rochester’s favor with the game-winner coming from Randall Gelech.

The battle began early in the first with both teams scoring within the first eight minutes of play. Toronto took first blood with Tim Stapleton picking up his 25th goal on the season after a pass from teammate Jiri Tlusty.

Rochester answered back on a goal from Kenndal McArdle, his 12th this season. McArdle was assisted by Keaton Ellerby and Michal Repik.

Amerks scored again with four minutes left in the first period as Ellerby (0+2) and fellow defenseman Matt [...]Read More

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Jacques Martin and Curt Styres Press Conference

April 8, 2009 - By

It’s pretty exciting (for me at least) that the 500th post on this web site is also a post with what should be a lot of great news regarding the future of the Rochester Americans and Florida Panthers affiliation (not just a ‘yay 500 posts’).  Jacques Martin (General Manager of the Florida Panthers) and Curt Styres (Owner of the Rochester Americans) held a press conference this afternoon announcing a number of plans they have in place to make the Amerks a Calder Cup contender yet again.

Curt Styres wants to make sure that fans understand that they (Amerks and Panthers) are doing their best to make the team a contender again.  The Panthers not only want to develop their players to be ready for the NHL, but they also believe that those players can learn a lot more through success.

The business relationship between the Rochester Americans and Florida Panthers is strong.  It seems that the relationship is not only strong in terms of financials, but the way the two teams operate.  Jody Gage and Lewis Staats have been working with the Panthers for most of the second half of the season in putting together a plan to improve.

Jacques [...]Read More

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Duffy Sent to Everblades; Beaverson to Amerks – UPDATED

April 8, 2009 - By

Matt Duffy is on the Everblades playoff roster but isn’t in Florida just yet since he played with the Amerks on Wednesday night in Toronto.

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The Florida Everblades put together their final playoff roster and one of the players included was Matt Duffy on defense, and another not included was Luke Beaverson who was sent back to the Amerks.

In five games Duffy got himself on the stats sheet with two goals and three assists along with only two penalty minutes.  We’ll be keeping an eye on him and expecting him to be a big part of the Amerks defensive core next season.

On the flipside, Luke Beaverson has played in 15 games for the Amerks earlier this season and only has one assist and 21 penalty minutes.

The Florida Everblades are the #1 team in the ECHL this season and about to begin their playoff run.  With nothing left for the Amerks this season (except to try and spoil the season for the Crunch), this move was expected.

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Chris Beckford-Tseu Reassigned to Rochester

April 7, 2009 - By

The Rochester Americans have Chris Beckford-Tseu back on the team after the Florida Panthers reassigned him from the Phoenix Roadrunners.  Beckford-Tseu played on game with the Florida Everblades before heading to Phoenix where he went on to register a 2-7-1 record with a 5.09 goals-against average and a .863 save percentage in 12 games with Phoenix.

In 22 American Hockey League contests with Rochester this season, the Toronto, Ontario native is 3-14-1 with a 3.94 goals-against average along with a .868 save percentage.

With the release of Miguel Beaudry I had thought that Brodeur would be capable of playing, but after seeing him in practice it does not appear that he’s ready.

Expecting to see David Shantz get the start in net Wednesday in Toronto with Beckford-Tseu as back up.

Best scenario for the final three games – The Amerks have the chance to spoil the playoff hopes of the Syracuse Crunch, all the Amerks need to do is lose to Toronto and then defeat Syracuse on Friday and Saturday.

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Jacques Martin and Curt Styres to Hold Amerks Press Conference

April 7, 2009 - By

Amerks fans may finally get some reassurance about the future of the team and the direction that it is headed on Wednesday afternoon.  The team has announced a press conference with Amerks Owner Curt Styres and Florida Panthers General Manager Jacques Martin at Blue Cross Arena.  It’ll be broadcast live on Amerks.com starting at 12:30.

The announced reason is to discuss ideas and reveal proposed plans for the Rochester Americans’ 2009-10 roster composition and team make-up in general.

At least one player on the current roster will not be returning, forward Karl Stewart has signed a contract with a German team for the 2009-10 season.

Some items, including the first one below, is something I’ve asked about recently and could not get any answers.  At least now I know it was because this press conference was being planned.

The Rochester Americans and the Florida Panthers have been meeting throughout the year and have come up with the following plans regarding the proposed make-up of the Amerks’ 2009-10 roster and team make-up in general:

  • The need for more veteran experience will be addressed. Rochester will have more influence as to who they will be. They can sign players on their [...]Read More

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Amerks Forward Karl Stewart Heading to Germany

April 7, 2009 - By

The news that Karl Stewart had signed to play with the German League’s Straubing Tigers next season popped up on the internet on Monday afternoon, about six days earlier than he had hoped.

The 25 year old winger was considered one of the “older guys” on the team.  He’s been a goal scorer this season as well as provided leadership.  He share’s the team lead with 18 goals, tied with Michal Repik and Stefan Meyer.

Here’s a quote from the Democrat and Chronicle:

“If I had a crystal ball and I knew what Rochester’s plans were, I would love to re-sign in Rochester,” Stewart said. “You can’t put a price on being close to home. My parents get to see me play, can go home whenever. But this was job security and if you ask any hockey player what he wants, it’s job security.”

You can read more quotes from Karl Stewart on Kevin O’s blog here.

Not too long after this became news the Amerks announced a press conference with team Owner Curt Styres and Jacques Martin, General Manager of the Florida Panthers to talk about the future.

It could turn out that the future was only [...]Read More

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Second Period Snoozefest Leads to Amerks Loss

April 6, 2009 - By

The Amerks were shutout 3-0 against the Grand Rapids Griffins on Sunday evening at the Blue Cross Arena.  The first period was decent with great plays on each side of the ice, unfortunately the game became a snooze fest if you were an Amerks fan.

This was a different team than we saw the two previous nights.  They won the game on Friday night with great passing and scoring.  On Saturday night they fought Syracuse right until the end of the game.  Tonight was only 20 minutes of hockey, similar to what we saw last season.

No one was happy with the way the game went tonight.  You know it’s a bad night when fans in the balcony start chanting “boring.”

I think the only person who really played hard all night for the Amerks was goaltender David Shantz.

Darren McCarty scored the first goal of the game at 10:15 of the second period and as it turned out the only goal that really mattered.  Tom Galvin had taken a shot from the point that Shantz was able to make the initial pad save.  The puck didn’t go very far on the rebound there and Justin Abdelkader was able to [...]Read More

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Beaudry Released; Brodeur Capable of Playing

April 5, 2009 - By

Miguel Beaudry packed his equipment after the game when he was told thanks for being the backup and that he was being released from the Rochester Americans.  He’ll be on his way back to Rapid City to spend the summer.  Beaudry was called up on April 2nd when the Amerks needed a backup due to an injury to Mike Brodeur.  Beaudry was here simply for support in case anything happened to David Shantz.

Beaudry knew the chances of playing were slim, but he was happy to be given the opportunity saying, “My season was over, helped to extend it a little bit and helps work on my game when I get back there.”

This all means that Mike Brodeur is feeling well enough to either play or at least be capable of backing up Shantz for the last three games of the season.  We’ll try and find out more on Tuesday at practice.

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Strong Effort by Amerks not Enough to defeat Crunch

April 5, 2009 - By

The Syracuse Crunch are undefeated at home this season against the Rochester Americans and continued that streak on Saturday night with a 3-2 win in front of 6,117 fans at the War Memorial.

Unlike previous contests between the two teams in Syracuse the Amerks put in a solid effort on the ice.

The Crunch scored first when Maksim Mayorov found the back of the net for his 16th goal of the season.  Craig MacDonald tallied his 24th assist of the year when he fed the pass up to a streaking Mayorov along the boards.  Mayorov was going one on one with Mike Caruso across the blue line, slid the puck around Caruso to the center of the ice, cut left with the puck and beat David Shantz glove side.

The Crunch forwards have learned how to skate around the Amerks defense untouched.  Hopefully that’s something that can be stopped by next weekend.

David Shantz made a spectacular save towards the end of the first period on a shot from Alexandre Picard.  The puck was in the face off circle when Picard took control of it, pulled a spin-o-rama move around Ellerby and put a quick shot on Shantz.

Randall Gelech [...]Read More

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Sprukts and Shantz Lead Amerks to Win

April 4, 2009 - By

The one thing that Rochester Americans can still play for is the role of spoiler.  They did a good job tonight by winning 4-2 over the Binghamton Senators and can try again on Saturday in Syracuse.  The Senators and Crunch are both in the hunt for the playoffs and each team needs every point they can get.  Janis Sprukts led the Amerks tonight with an assist on each goal and David Shantz stopped 42 out of 44 shots.  That’s a total of 92 saves over the previos two games for Shantz.

The Amerks won the game by skating fast, not making costly mistakes, great passes and by finishing plays and scoring.  This was one of those games this season where they looked like a playoff team, not second to last place in the league.

Riley Emmerson and Jeremy Yablonski both started the game and lined up next each other on the opening face off, I thought they would drop the gloves but nothing happened.  I couldn’t find either play after the game to ask why.  This was the 8th and final game of the season between the two teams, the Senators won the season [...]Read More

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Amerks Call up Goaltender Miguel Beaudry

April 1, 2009 - By

The Rochester Americans have called up goaltender Miguel Beaudry from the Rapid City Rush of the Central Hockey League. Apparently my April Fools Day post wasn’t that far fetched, except they went with someone other than Chris Beckford-Tseu.  The 26 year old goaltender finished this season in the CHL with a 16-20-6 record with a 3.30 GAA and 0.904 save percentage.  Including the 08/09 season, Beaudry has spent the past seven season in the CHL and five prior to that in the OHL (source).

Tyler Plante is finished for the season.  Mike Brodeur has not skated since Friday but is expected to practice on Thursday.  David Shantz was called up from the Dayton Bombers.  Bob Janosz (goalie coach) has been the 2nd goalie in practice this week.  In case Brodeur can’t play on Friday the Amerks needed someone other than the coach to suit up.

The only real meaning left for the final six games would be to beat the Syracuse Crunch the three times the two teams play and try to hurt their playoff chances.  Otherwise with the goaltender situation it’s a good thing the Amerks aren’t playoff contenders at all.

Here’s a quote taken from [...]Read More

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Updates on Brodeur, Plante, and Glass

April 1, 2009 - By

If Franklin MacDonald gets another crack at a shootout the next move he may pull off is spinning around, skating backwards with his back to the goalie, and then at the last minute spinning around again to get a shot off.  It’s become normal for the team to practice shootouts at the end and while most take it seriously, some of the other players like MacDonald have some fun.

Tyler Plante is finished for the season with his shoulder injury.  This is the second season in a row he’s finished off the year like this.  Not sure what’s going on, but I hope he’s able to get it fixed/recover.  He had shown a lot of improvement since returning from the ECHL and showed that he was capable of playing at this level.

Tanner Glass is still practicing in full gear, participating in all the drills, but he’s not quite ready to play.  Benoit said that he’s not playing this weekend.  We were recently told about 2 1/2 weeks which would have him returning in Toronto for the final three games of the season.

The only other update to come out of practice is that Mike Brodeur did not practice, Benoit [...]Read More

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