Posts Tagged ‘David Leggio’

Michal Repik Leads the Way to Creating an Amerks Loss

February 12, 2012 - By
Michal Repik Leads the Way to Creating an Amerks Loss

It’s a perfect time to write a familiar name, Michal Repik scored the game winning goal on Saturday night at the War Memorial in downtown Rochester.  Repik scored two goals leading the San Antonio Rampage to a 4-1 win over the Rochester Americans.  As for the Amerks, they were present in uniforms but not in any other way.  There was very little effort compared to the 9-4 rout over the Stars the night before.  The game on Friday night gave a glimpse into what this team is capable of playing on all cylinders and on Saturday the team showed one of the reasons it could miss the playoffs completely.

The Amerks played back to back home games and had the chance to sleep in their own beds and to be well rested for the game.  The Rampage arrived in Southern Ontario last Monday and have been living out of hotels and riding a bus, they were the team that should be starting to wear down but that wasn’t the case at all.

Luke Adam was sent to Rochester on Saturday afternoon and the expectations were high to see what he’d be capable of and by the end of the game [...]Read More

Amerks Highlights from 3-0 Win Over the Heat on February 2

February 6, 2012 - By
Amerks Highlights from 3-0 Win Over the Heat on February 2

The Amerks started the month of February on a good note with a 3-0 win over the Abbotsford Heat on February 2nd.  For a full recap of the two games against the Heat you can read that here.

Goaltender David Leggio also debuted his new mask at this game, you can read about that here.

Thanks to YouTube and forums user Disengage for recording these to share.

Nick Crawford opens the scoring against the Abbotsford Heat. Assist to Marcus Foligno.

Joe Finley fights Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond after boarding Brayden McNabb.

Phil Varone scores a shorthanded goal assisted by Marcus Foligno

David Leggio makes a save on a shorthanded breakaway by Carter Bancks

Travis Turnbull scores on a rebound for the Amerks’ first power play goal in 31 attempts. Assists to Brayden McNabb and Paul Szczechura

Leggio Earns the Amerks 3 out of 4 Points Against the Heat

1
February 4, 2012 - By
Leggio Earns the Amerks 3 out of 4 Points Against the Heat

We’re now in the month of February and this is the time of the season that teams make a push for the playoffs and determine how they’ll be able to play once in the playoffs.  The NHL trade deadline is Monday February 27, 2012, just over three weeks away.  There’s one position that the Amerks have started to gain some consistency and that’s in goaltender David Leggio.  In two games he earned a shutout, overtime loss and combined 62 saves.  Leggio had an outstanding 33 save shutout on Thursday night and then two of the three goals scored against him on Friday night were the result of the puck being redirected, can’t really blame the goalie on those.  Now if only the Amerks could get healthy and possibly add a real scorer this team could start to make a better run.

The Amerks gained three out of four possible points in the standings so far this week which is acceptable looking at it that way.  The Amerks started the night three points behind the Marlies but the Marlies beat the Crunch and increased the lead to four.  Both teams have played 46 games.

In Thursdays game the Amerks looked like [...]Read More

New Goalie Helmet for Amerks David Leggio

February 2, 2012 - By
New Goalie Helmet for Amerks David Leggio

I’ll always find goalie helmets in hockey fascinating because of the stories some of them have behind them.  David Leggio is debuting his new helmet this week which again has a split theme between the Rochester Americans and Buffalo Sabres.  The new paint job is because he has a new helmet from Bauer that they believe will be safer and fit his head better.  He’s been using the new style helmet in practice for a while now getting used to it while still using the previous style in games.  He’s finally comfortable with the style so he sent one off to DaveArt to get painted.  This helmet isn’t as colorful as the last one but it again has some great things involved.

(Click here for the old helmet (bottom section of the article) and information behind it)

The left side of the helmet has the word Americans across the top along with a portrait of Terrence K. Crow who was killed in action over in Iraq in 2005.  Terrence K. Crow was the father of one of Leggio’s friends.  He was also on the first helmet Leggio wore.  There’s also a charging buffalo coming from the cage.  For more on Terrence [...]Read More

Griffins 3 Goals in Under 3 Minutes Defeats Amerks; Gongalsky vs Piche

January 26, 2012 - By
Griffins 3 Goals in Under 3 Minutes Defeats Amerks; Gongalsky vs Piche

The Amerks lost on Wednesday night and there’s two ways you could look at the standings after this game.  The glass half empty way is that the Amerks are following the Buffalo Sabres lead and slowly sinking in the standings.  There’s only four points that separates the Amerks from the Rockford IceHogs who are in last place in the conference.  They’re also only six points from last place in the league.  The glass half full way is that the Amerks are only two points from eighth place in the conference and four points from sixth place.  The good news is that the Amerks play nine out of 12 games in February on home ice so if there was ever a time to really turn things around it’d be in February.  The ship hasn’t sunk but there’s reason for concern.

The real downfall has been the inconsistencies.  Everything from goal scoring to goaltending to wins and losses.  This is a hard working group of hockey players with a lot of potential how much they can really accomplish is the question.  The hope for any sports team is to get into the playoffs and then anything can happen.  It’s going to take [...]Read More

Gameday Notes Amerks vs Griffins; Finley and Morrisonn Back

January 25, 2012 - By
Gameday Notes Amerks vs Griffins; Finley and Morrisonn Back

The best news for the Amerks second game of this road trip against the Grand Rapids Griffins is that they’ll have Joe Finley and Shaone Morrisonn back on defense after they missed a few games.  Morrisonn has missed the last three games while serving a three game suspension.  Finley has missed the past four Amerks games while called up to the Buffalo Sabres.  The defense has gotten by but those two are much more capable defensively against the top lines of opposing teams.

Rochester came back from being down 3-1 this past Saturday against the Griffins and won in the shootout, final score was 4-3.  Nick Crawford, Zack Kassian and Mark Voakes scored in regulation and Paul Szczechura, Jonathan Parker and Shawn Szydlowski scored in the shootout for the win.  David Leggio made 35 saves for his 12th win of the season.  Leggio is now 12-10-1 with a 2.82 GAA.  My guess is that Leggio gets another start tonight.

The key to an Amerks win is simple, build a lead through the first two periods and hold on to it going into the third.  Pretty basic.  The Amerks are 18-4-2-1 when they have a lead going into the third period.  They’ve found ways to come [...]Read More

Amerks Using a Mulligan after 5-2 Loss to the Barons, Try Again Friday

January 20, 2012 - By
Amerks Using a Mulligan after 5-2 Loss to the Barons, Try Again Friday

The Rochester Americans weren’t very good on Thursday night and it showed on the scoreboard with the Oklahoma City Barons easily skating away with a 5-2 win.  The team will use a mulligan and forget the game ever happened and move on to the rematch on Friday night on the same ice surface.  I’ll continue going through a game recap but it can be summed up pretty easily, the Amerks were without three of their top defensemen and it showed.  The team was missing Shaone Morrisonn, Joe Finley and TJ Brennan and the Barons took advantage of it.

The news leading up to the game was that Michael Ryan would finally be back in the lineup after missing 35 games.  Well, he wasn’t.  He looked fine at the morning skate and Rolston even talked about him playing after practice.  Because of those two things I was expecting to see him but when the team came out for warmups one of the players missing was Ryan.  Jacob Legace wasn’t expected to play either but did given the opening in the roster.  Ryan in the lineup probably wouldn’t have been a game changer but he would’ve helped.

Alex Biega made one of the better [...]Read More

Amerks Gameday Notes, Lineup and Injury Updates

January 19, 2012 - By
Amerks Gameday Notes, Lineup and Injury Updates

The biggest news in Rochester other than Kodak filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy is that Michael Ryan is back in the lineup for the Rochester Americans.  The last appearance of Michael Ryan on a gameday was October 16th when he was on the ice for warmups but didn’t come out for the game.  It was reported as “headaches” and he’s missed 35 games since then.  It’ll probably take a few games for Ryan to get his timing back but they’re looking for some instant offense out of him.

Zack Kassian had a solid two games against Binghamton and Hershey when he first came back and then was “ok” last weekend against Toronto and Hershey.  Rolston attributed that to Kassian just getting back to town, settling in and getting reacquainted with the team.  hmm.. I think that would’ve been the case with the first two games back, not the second two.  Kassian should be playing on a line with Michael Ryan and Paul Szczechura so a big game will be expected from him.

One thing the Amerks don’t want to do is get into a shootout type of situation against the Barons.  They don’t want the game to get into a shootout to [...]Read More

Leggio Leads the Amerks to the Second Half of the Season with a Win

January 15, 2012 - By
Leggio Leads the Amerks to the Second Half of the Season with a Win

Another weekend has come and gone and another pair of solid performances by the Rochester Americans.  The team finished the set of games with three out of a possible four points with an overtime loss to the Toronto Marlies on Friday and regulation win against the Hamilton Bulldogs on Saturday night.  David Leggio has stepped up to becoming the star of the team right now with his fourth straight standout performance.  Leggio had 35 saves in a win against the Bulldogs on Saturday and over the course of the past four starts he has made 165 saves in net.  That’s a lot of pucks to be stopping.  Oh defense where are you?

This team has needed the goalie to steal wins and the win against Hamilton could be considered one of those games.  Right now that goal is David Leggio and he’ll have more starts on the horizon.

Back to the win over Hamilton.. the Amerks are now 9-0-1-0 when leading after two periods of play.  When this team can find a way to build a lead they’ve done an outstanding job of holding on to it.

Mark Voakes put the Amerks on the board first with his fifth goal [...]Read More

Amerks Comeback Takes the Bears to the Shootout; Successful Weekend

January 9, 2012 - By
Amerks Comeback Takes the Bears to the Shootout; Successful Weekend

The Amerks loss to the Hershey Bears can be looked at a few ways but the best way to look at it is that this team has a lot of heart, character and a never say die attitude that’s awesome to watch.  After two periods the Bears were winning the game and had a 36-9 advantage in shots, they had a 15-3 advantage after the first period.  The game appeared to be a game of kids amongst men but it was still only 2-0 after 40 minutes with plenty of time for the Amerks to make it a game.  They did just that 15 seconds into the third period and then tied it up with 61 seconds left on the scoreboard to send the game into overtime and the eventual shootout.

(photo courtesy of Sweetest Hockey on Earth, a Hershey Bears site similar to this one)

It was a successful weekend for the Amerks picking up four out of a possible six points in the standings.  They lost in the shootout on Friday against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and defeated the Binghamton Senators on Saturday.  I’ve often said not so nice things about the quality of video that you get [...]Read More

Varone and Leggio Lead Amerks to 3-2 Win Over B-Sens

January 8, 2012 - By
Varone and Leggio Lead Amerks to 3-2 Win Over B-Sens

Sounds like the game came down to the final moments on Saturday night when the Amerks defeated the defending Calder Cup Champion Binghamton Senators.  I was not able to see or listen to the game so here’s the press release below…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 7, 2011

VARONE, LEGGIO POWER AMERKS TO 3-2 WIN OVER B-SENS

(Rochester, NY)… Rochester Americans rookie forward Phil Varone scored a pair of goals, including the game-winner, and David Leggio made a season-high 44 saves to power the Amerks to a 3-2 win over the defending Calder Cup champion Binghamton Senators tonight at Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena. The win improves Rochester (15-13-4-2) to 3-1-0-0 this season against the B-Sens as it has now collected points in six of its last seven games.

The two-goal effort was the first multi-goal game for Varone, who also extended his point streak to six games. The game also featured the return of forward Zack Kassian and defenseman T.J. Brennan, who were reassigned to Rochester earlier this morning. Kassian made an immediate impact in his first game back in the lineup, assisting on Varone’s first goal of the game and finishing with a +1 rating.

Andre Petersson (1+1) [...]Read More

Gameday: Maturing Amerks Hit the Road Again; Morrisonn and Tropp Return

January 6, 2012 - By
Gameday: Maturing Amerks Hit the Road Again; Morrisonn and Tropp Return

The Amerks hit the road again for the start of a busy almost second half of the season.  They’ll be playing three games in three nights starting tonight against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and then Binghamton Senators and then closing out the weekend against the Hershey Bears on Sunday.  The team will play every Friday and Saturday night until April 6th which is the second to last weekend of the season.  This will also be one of five sets of three games in three nights to finish the season.

Last weekend the Amerks ended the year one point behind the Toronto Marlies for first place in the division and here we are a week later and the Amerks are now six points behind them and ninth place in the conference.  It’s not October or November anymore, this is the time of season when points start to have a lot more meaning when it comes to the playoffs.  There are 43 games remaining and there’s only four points separating the Amerks from where they are in ninth place to the Hamilton Bulldogs in 13th.

The Rochester Americans have been maturing as the season goes on which is great instead of a quick [...]Read More