Amerks explode for eight goals, keep season alive with Game 3 victory over Crunch
One week ago during a somewhat demoralizing 3-0 loss, the Rochester Amerks suffered not only a shutout at the hands of the Syracuse Crunch, they didn’t even record a shot on goal in the first period in Game 2 of their AHL North Division semifinal series.
Fast forward to Friday night at Blue Cross Arena when, with their season on the brink of extinction trailing two games to none in the best-of-five series, the Amerks erupted for five goals in a frenetic third period to defeat the Crunch 8-5.
“The regrets you have in a game like this is when your team plays tight and plays tentative and they play trying not to lose,” said Amerks coach Seth Appert. “You love a group that doesn’t give in. We played an attacking game tonight, which is when we’re at our best.”
That was, as they say, quite an understatement, and Appert hopes that style of play continues in Game 4 at 3:05 p.m. Sunday.
Goals by Isak Rosen and Michael Mersch (who finished with a hat trick) carried the Amerks to a 2-1 lead through 20 minutes, and after Syracuse tied it in the second, Sean Malone scored a pretty goal on a backhander with 1:05 left to put Rochester back on top 3-2.
And then chaos ensued in the third period as the teams combined for eight goals while the crowd of 9,101 roared with delight.
“I thought we were excellent for the first 40 minutes, they had very few scoring chances,” Appert said. “And the third period went completely sideways for both teams.”
Once again, quite the understatement.
Mason Jobst scored shorthanded at 4:22, but Syracuse’s two most dynamic offensive talents, Simon Ryfors and Alex Barre-Boulet, scored 2:13 apart to even the count at 4-4.
Then came the key moment of the night as Syracuse’s Ryan Jones and Daniel Walcott were called for separate penalties at 14:11, giving the Amerks a two-man advantage and they scored what proved to be the decisive two goals.
Jiri Kulich, the Amerks’ leading goal scorer during the regular season who had missed the first two games with an injury, made it 5-4 as he rifled a shot from the slot past Crunch goal Max Lagace, and then Mersch squeezed one in from a bad angle 46 seconds later for a 6-4 lead.
“Good patience, and Jiri’s got a really nice shot,” Mersch said with a smile regarding the power play which went 3-for-4 in the game. “It’s nice to get the power play to have an effect on the game because we’ve got some good players who can make some good plays.”
Ryfors completed his own hat trick with 2:33 remaining, but Brett Murray and Mersch hit empty nets to close out a fun night at the old downtown barn.
“Obviously, when you can score that many goals it’s huge,” Mersch said. “We’d like to be a little more shut down defensively, but at the end of the day, we won the game and we’re looking forward to the next one. Big win and we scored some big goals tonight which is great and hopefully we can carry some momentum into the next game but be a little more detailed defensively.”
Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which will come out every Friday during the offseason, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Rochester Americans defeat Syracuse Crunch in Game 3 of playoffs
