Resilience is the buzzword that describes an Amerks team that overcame so much

When a player shows up for his final post-game interaction with the media still wearing his skates 45 minutes after a heartbreaking, season-ending loss, that pretty much defines how badly the Rochester Amerks wanted to keep playing.

“Yeah, I’m still in my gear,” JJ Peterka said, forcing a smile through his disappointment, well after Blue Cross Arena had emptied out and the Amerks’ fascinating season had been extinguished with a 6-5 triple-overtime loss to Laval Wednesday night.

Peterka, who had a superb rookie season in the AHL and doubled down with a spectacular 10-game postseason run, simply didn’t want to unlace and remove his blades because that act was the signification that this fun and frenetic ride was over.

That was a point that was also hammered home by defenseman Ethan Prow.

“It’s tough,” Prow said. “It’s always a tough pill to swallow, there’s no easy way to put it. This group will never be together again, so we cherish those moments, but it’s tough.”

This was quite a season for the Amerks, one that saw them win 16 of their first 24 games as 2021 turned into 2022. But then a spate of injuries and call-ups to Buffalo began wreaking havoc with Seth Appert’s roster and the Amerks sank like a stone down the North Division standings.

By March 11 they were coughing and wheezing at 27-23-3-2 and were in fifth place, and from that moment on, they were essentially in playoff mode.

Night after night the Amerks grinded, but when they dropped three straight in the last week of April, it came down to the final game of the regular season at home against Utica. Win and they were in the Calder Cup playoffs, and the Amerks responded with an 8-1 thrashing of the rival Comets.

“Obviously we had some highs there when you look back,” Prow said. “We snuck in the playoffs and then we had some fun games there and go to battle with this group of guys. It shows the group that we have; we always battled for each other.”

To get to the postseason, the Amerks needed contributions from everyone who was on the ice on a given night, and that was certainly an ever-changing cast of characters.

It started with the two high-scoring rookies, Peterka and Jack Quinn, and each was up to the task as Peterka led the team with 28 goals and 68 points and Quinn - despite playing only 45 games - had 26 goals and 61 points.

Captain Michael Mersch - who Rochester sorely missed in the Laval series as he nursed a concussion suffered in Game 3 against Utica - had 26 goals and provided boundless leadership; Arttu Ruotsalainen became a dangerous scorer, a role he took to a higher level in the playoffs; and then Peyton Krebs came down once the Sabres’ season ended and was a whirling dervish in the playoffs with 11 assists.

The grit guys and secondary scorers like Sean Malone, Brett Murray, Ryan MacInnes, Mark Jankowski, Linus Weissbach and Brandon Biro did their thing. On defense, when he was with the Amerks and not in Buffalo, Casey Fitzgerald was a rock, as were Prow, Jimmy Schuldt, Mitch Eliot and Mark Alt.

And then in net, after going through some early-season difficulties, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen finished strong before getting hurt in that last game against Utica which knocked him out of the playoff run.

So in stepped veteran Aaron Dell to start all 10 games and backstop series victories over Belleville and Utica, and then made a career-high 54 saves Wednesday as he tried desperately to extend the Amerks’ season.

“We have such a great group here, it was fun to be here every day,” said Dell. “When you’re excited to be here, you come in, you do your work and you don’t want to let the guys down so you have to be at your best and you expect the same out of everybody else.”

In the end, it wasn’t enough against an outstanding Laval team who whipped the Amerks in the first two games at home, then showed pretty stiff resolve by tying Game 3 late in regulation after blowing a 4-2 lead, and then surviving two OT periods before Jean-Sebatien Dea - the former Amerk - scored the series-winning goal.

Appert was obviously disheartened by the final defeat, but as he said, that’s the deal in the postseason. Only one team is smiling at the end, and when you suffer your end, the abruptness of it all is jarring.

But as he pushed aside the disappointment, he continued to ring the bell regarding just how proud he was of his team which battled through so many crazy nights and the rollercoaster of emotions that they encountered along the way.

“Resilience, love for each other, passion for coming to the rink and trying to get better every day,” Appert said when he was asked how this team persevered the way it did. “So many of our players had career years. How do you have career years whether you’re a veteran or a young prospect? You show up with a good attitude every day and you work and you put the time into practice and the weight room, things that media doesn’t see.

“This group’s daily approach and daily attitude and daily buy in to working hard, practicing hard, being in the weight room competitively was was outstanding. And so therefore, their individual games grew immensely because of that. So that combined with the resilience of the adversity we went through and the love they had for each other is the way I’ll remember the group.”

All of this bodes well, of course, for the parent team Sabres. This playoff run should only help the players like Quinn, Peterka, Krebs, and Fitzgerald who the Sabres are counting on to establish themselves at the NHL level, hopefully in 2022-23.

But that’s for September when training camp starts. For now, the season is done, and the Amerks wish it wasn’t.

“Overall it was a great experience for all of us … but, yeah, it still sucks,” Peterka said. “You don’t have that many chances to play in playoffs and win a couple rounds so you just soak it in and in a couple days we’ll appreciate it more.”

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. 

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Amerks' playoff run is over, but they have plenty to be proud of