There’s a couple different ways to look at the game.  One of which is that it was an ugly victory and not the way you want to play during game #79 heading into the playoffs.  Another way to look at it is that the Amerks had four players who’ve played under 10 professional games, are still missing a lot of others and that they fulfilled their goal of making the playoffs with a much needed win.

One game remains on the regular season schedule and that’s Saturday evening on the road against the Syracuse Crunch.  According to Chris Taylor just because the team has clinched the playoffs and home ice don’t expect the team to take the night off.

“It’s good to see that even though we only played a solid period tonight we found a way to win,” Benoit Groulx said.

“It wasn’t pretty but at the end of the night we got the point that we needed,” Rory Fitzpatrick said after the game.  “We definitely don’t want to play too many more games like that especially headed into the playoffs but we got that point and that’s all that mattered tonight.”

I asked Taylor if the team could start looking forward and he replied, “Beyond tomorrow no, it’s our last game of the year.  We play 80 games, that’s what the schedule says.  We’ve got to play it hard and continue to do good things and practicing.  If we would’ve made the playoffs 10 games ago we still wouldn’t have taken 10 games off.”

As Taylor talked about the work ahead, Benoit Groulx was happy that the team reached it’s goal.  “We are happy.  Our first goal this year was to make the playoffs and we achieved that,” Groulx said.  “And establish ourselves in the top 10 in this league and that’s where we are.  It’s one step towards being a contender every year.”

Jeff Taffe opened the scoring at 3:42 of the first period picking the top right corner of the net after receiving a great cross ice pass from Jamie Johnson.  The goal was the 28th of the season for Taffe as he continues his career season with goals scored.

Not wanting Taffe to get too far ahead in the team lead for goals scored, Jamie Johnson scored his own at 13:30 of the first period as he tipped in a pass from Jordan Henry in the corner.  Chris Taylor scored his 17th goal of the season at 17:24 of the first after Jordan Henry fed the puck to the slot from behind the net.

“Seems like every time I’ve gotten one he gets one back,” Jeff Taffe said joking about the goal scoring race between him and Johnson.  “It would’ve been nice if he tied me tonight, neither of us are big goal scorers so it’s kind of funny to both of us.”

Josh Engel put the Marlies on the board at 19:05 of the first period to make the score 3-1 after one period.

The second period was scoreless with Alexander Salak making nine saves and on the other end James Reimer only saw one shot on net by the Amerks.

Alexander Salak stood on his head making a number of big saves as the game went on that kept the Amerks in the game.  On the other side of the ice Marlies goalie James Reimer did the same thing.

When asked about the outstanding play of Salak, Benoit Groulx said, “Outstanding for the fans but i don’t think it was outstanding for the coaches.”  He went on to say, “It was interesting, it was spectacular but it’s not the way we want to play.”

Things heated up in the third period which showed a lot about the Marlies team.  Even though they are not making the playoffs they did not give up and continued skating hard.

In the third period Tim Brent won a face off for the Marlies and immediately Greg Scott rushed the net with the puck but it was poked away by either Clay Wilson or Alexander Salak, it was tough to see who’s stick touched it.  Ryan Hamilton was there to get the puck and shot it over the shoulder of Salak to make it a 3-2 game at 3:01.

Andre Deveaux tied the game for the Marlies at 4:26 of the third period as he did not quit after the initial shot and was able to knock in his own rebound.

The overtime session was intense with the Amerks registering eight shots against only two for the Marlies.  The difference was the goalies at that part of the game.

Jeff Taffe, Mike York and Michal Repik all scored in the skills competition to give the Amerks the win and two points in the standings to lock in second place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwm6oF6Q8CM

Second place in the division belongs to the Amerks but there’s still work to do.

“We’ve got to continue to improve on the little things that are going to help us win in the playoffs,” Chris Taylor said.

Even though the Amerks found a way to win Jeff Taffe said,  “It’s not the way we want to be playing going into the playoffs.  A 3-1 lead at home, there’s no excuse for that.  That’s stuff that can’t happen come playoff time.”

The Amerks are on the road tonight against the Syracuse Crunch in the regular season finale.  The Amerks have won all nine of the previous games between the two teams this season.  There’s no love between these two teams, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens.

See you at the game if you’re going!

Amerks Hold on Tight and Defeat Marlies in Shootout is a post from: Let's Go Amerks!. For discussion visit the forums at LetsGoAmerks.com/Forums.

If you have to call a winner it clearly goes to Deveaux but Hudson deserves credit for the big hit.  The extra penalty given to Deveaux resulted in an Amerks power play and a goal by Jeff Taffe to give the Amerks a 3-1 lead at the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsOxJMt0INk

Towards the end of the second period Jordan Henry and Phil Oreskovic must have decided they had enough chirping when they agreed to fight after a face off.  You can watch what leads up to the fight or skip to about the :55 second mark to see the fight itself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCk2y1WRBxk

Enjoy and share!

Hudson and Henry Fight Videos vs Marlies is a post from: Let's Go Amerks!. For discussion visit the forums at LetsGoAmerks.com/Forums.

“Last night (7-3 win over the Marlies) I thought we played a pretty solid game and today i thought we played one period,” Benoit Groulx said about the game which also summarizes this team.  Inconsistent.

Tyler Plante played another great game for the Amerks making 40 saves and is certainly making the case for himself to be the goalie in the final six games and possibly into the post season.  Two of the Marlies three goals were tipped in and the third he had no help from the defense as Andre Deveraux walked right in front of the net.  Almost 15 minutes after the game ended he was still sitting in his stall with his pads on, a sure sign he was not happy with the outcome of the game.

“I’m not going to blame the goalie when your short handed and the guy walks alone short handed into the net,” Benoit Groulx said after the game about that goal.  “Two guys along the board and we’re losing the puck.”

Jamie Johnson and John de Gray were fighting for the puck on the boards when Josh Engel poked it free and passed it to Andre Deveaux who skated in behind Jordan Henry and in on Plante to score.

“Today I didn’t have a very good game defensively and its just not good enough,” John de Gray said in the locker room accepting part of the blame.

Defense has been an issue all season for the Amerks but with Jason Garrison, Keaton Ellerby and Rory Fitzpatrick all out of the lineup it’s been an adjustment for the team.

Talking about that Benoit Groulx said, “It’s tough for us defensively missing so many guys and we know we’re going to have tough games once in a while and that’s one of our worst performances by our group of defensemen. They weren’t physical, they were reaching all night long.”

While that comment comes off pretty strong calling out the defensive players Groulx also followed up giving them a pass saying, “I’m not blaming them because for the most part everyone but Clay Wilson is sitting in the wrong chair.  They have too much ice time.  We put them in situations they’re not used to playing and today we struggled.”

John de Gray backed that up saying, “It’s tough on guys like Henry and Willie who eat a lot of minutes.”  He went on to say, “We still have a good enough team where that shouldn’t be a problem.”

The Amerks penalty killing has been really bad lately, a topic that keeps being repeated and no one has an answer.

“The main thing is our PK has been pretty bad right now,” de Gray said.  “Planter had a good game for us and it wasn’t his fault.”

The Amerks started out with a short handed goal at 11:43 of the first period.  Michal Repik went into the Marlies zone and around the back boards before he fed a pass to Chris Taylor skating down the middle for his 15th goal of the season.  Put the puck on Taylors stick in that situation and he’ll score.

Andrew Sweetland redirected a shot from John-Scott Dickson for his 5th of the season and it also gave the Amerks a 2-0 lead after one period.

Ryan Hamilton and Kyle Calder each scored in the second period for the Marlies redirecting shots past Tyler Plante.  A goalie can only do so much and rarely (in my opinion) has a chance other than luck when a shot is tipped or redirected.

Jeff Taffe also scored in the second period knocking in a juicy rebound past Marlies goalie James Reimer.  That goal now has Taffe at 26 goals for the season in 58 games played.

As noted above, Andre Deveaux scored the game tying goal at 11:03 of the third period on the power play.

“For the most part it’s because we weren’t physical in our zone.  When we’re not physical down low and don’t control the wall you don’t get the puck and that’s exactly what happened today,” Groulx said summing up the performance by the team.

Evgeny Dadonov had appeared to score a goal in overtime but the referee was out of position and James Reimer did a great job at either stopping the puck or making it look like it had not gone across the goal line.  A tough break for the Amerks but it should not have come to that.

The game went into the shootout and Greg Scott was the only player to score as he went to a backhand and beat Tyler Plante.  Jamie Johnson, Evgeny Dadonov, Mike York, Jeff Taffe and Graham Mink were all unsuccessful.  It was only the third shootout this season for the Amerks and their first loss.

A few other things…..

— When asked about the status of Rory Fitzpatrick and Mathieu Roy the only thing Groulx would say is that they’re injured and he does not know (or would not say) when he expects them back.

— Jimmy Bonneau had a minor injury after the Saturday night game against the Marlies but expects to be able to play on Wednesday.

— Carl Hudson had been asked to play on Friday night against the Binghamton Senators but Hudson did not feel confident at the time in playing.  He had not played recently and asked for a couple more days which he got.

Rochester travels on Wednesday to play the Grand Rapids Griffins.  The Griffins are sitting in last place but defeated the Amerks on March 14th by the final score of 3-2.  The two teams have played four times and split those games 2-2 and will meet again on April 7th.

————-
Toronto Marlies 4 (SO) At Rochester Americans 3 – Status: Final SO
Mar 28, 2010 – Blue Cross Arena

Toronto 0 2 1 0 – 4
Rochester 2 1 0 0 – 3

1st Period-1, Rochester, Taylor 15 (Repik, Wilson), 11:43 (sh). 2, Rochester, Sweetland 5 (Dickson, Oreskovich), 13:22. Penalties-Henry Rch (tripping), 9:59; Foster Tor (goaltender interference), 14:20.

2nd Period-3, Toronto, Hamilton 15 (Ondrus, Foster), 5:44. 4, Rochester, Taffe 26 (Mink, Repik), 11:23 (pp). 5, Toronto, Calder 13 (Brent, Mikus), 18:11. Penalties-Repik Rch (holding), 0:51; Duco Rch (cross-checking), 6:43; Deveaux Tor (instigating, fighting, misconduct – instigating), 9:49; Hudson Rch (fighting), 9:49; Henry Rch (roughing), 14:29; Brent Tor (charging), 19:49; Oreskovic Tor (fighting), 19:51; Henry Rch (fighting), 19:51.

3rd Period-6, Toronto, Deveaux 15 (Engel, Foster), 11:03 (pp). Penalties-Taylor Rch (high-sticking), 4:14; Wilson Rch (hooking), 9:24; Hotham Rch (hooking), 11:53; Dadonov Rch (tripping), 19:08.

OT Period- No Scoring.Penalties-No Penalties

Shootout – Toronto 1 (Brent NG, Engel NG, Scott G, Hamilton NG), Rochester 0 (Johnson NG, Dadonov NG, York NG, Taffe NG, Mink NG).
Shots on Goal-Toronto 5-14-19-5-1-44. Rochester 9-8-6-4-0-27.
Power Play Opportunities-Toronto 1 of 8; Rochester 1 of 3.
Goalies-Toronto, Reimer 12-6-1 (27 shots-24 saves). Rochester, Plante 9-11-1 (43 shots-40 saves).
A-4,465
Referees-Chris Ciamaga (41).
Linesmen-John Murphy (71), Dan Murphy (21).

Marlies Capitalize on Amerks Bad Defensive Game to Win is a post from: Let's Go Amerks!. For discussion visit the forums at LetsGoAmerks.com/Forums.

Amerks trainer Kent Weisbeck said that Duco is just waiting for his shoulder to not feel as sore so he can shoot a puck.

Duco has played in five games this season for the Amerks and through those five games was pretty much invisible.  Once the Duco is back on the ice that we saw last year he should fit in pretty well with the rest of this team.

Mike Duco is Day to Day is a post from: Let's Go Amerks!. For discussion visit the forums at LetsGoAmerks.com/Forums.