AMERKS FINAL REPORT CARD OF THE 2025-26 SEASON
Amerks honor their past, show blue collar grit throughout historic 70th anniversary season
Apr 28, 2026By Andrew Mossbrooks | @ Mossbrooks48
The curtain has dropped on another season of Rochester Americans hockey, but this wasn’t just another season. The 2025-26 campaign had an emphasis on grit, honoring history, and celebrating one final call from a longtime voice.
Rochester’s season ended sooner than they would’ve liked, bowing out in a three-game series to the Toronto Marlies in the opening round of the Calder Cup Playoffs.
While the city will have to wait at least one more year for the Cup to come back to Rochester, this team’s run that gave them a chance to play for it, among many other reasons, are why the 70th season of Amerks hockey will be reflected on as a year to remember.
PERSEVERANCE: A+
Entering the season, the Amerks looked poised for another deep run with a shot to compete for the North Division title. That was until key forwards Josh Dunne and Noah Östlund found full-time roles with the Sabres, as did Amerks captain, Zach Metsa. Throughout the season, others like Konsta Helenius, Trevor Kuntar, and Zac Jones would earn recalls, subsequently thinning out Rochester’s lineup.
Times became more difficult during the season with Carson Meyer, Jake Leschyshyn, Riley Fiddler-Schultz, Vsevolod Komarov, Ryan Johnson, Jack Rathbone, and others going down at various times throughout the year due to injury. To top it all off, at the NHL trade deadline, Amerks leading goal scorer Isak Rosén was dealt.
Between injuries and call-ups, the Amerks lost over 400-man games this past season. The team went on a nine-game winless run from February into March. Despite all the adversity, all the obstacles, all the times the team looked weaker than its opponents on paper, the Amerks were able to will themselves to the playoffs.
The absence of key players created room for others like Olivier Nadeau, Matteo Costantini, Noah Laaouan and more to produce breakout years and get meaningful playing time in the AHL for the first time in their respective careers.
Rochester powered through a 72-game grind to push a .500 record into the playoffs, reaching the postseason for a fifth straight year, something the team hasn’t done in two decades.
70TH CELEBRATION: A+
Each month beginning in October, the Amerks looked back on their history, celebrating the decades of the organization’s existence. It began on 50’s night, saw a collaboration between the red, white, and blue and its parent club on 80’s night, brought back the stars and bars from the 90’s, then rewound to the new millennium with platinum silver from the 2000s.
Rochester also honored its past in February with the Calder Cup in house, along with greats from yesteryear like Jody Gage, Dixon Ward, and Wayne Primeau. The first month of the new year also saw two new members enshrined into the Amerks Hall of Fame, with the posthumous induction of Claude Verret joining 1996 Calder Cup Champion, Dean Melanson.
When looking at the roster, the 2025-26 team was very much a focus on the future, but the team made sure to understand its roots and recognize the past 70 years that have helped make Amerks hockey what it is today.
DON STEVENS: A+
If there were a higher grade than A+, I think we can all agree it would be awarded to Don Stevens. If nothing else, the 70th season of Amerks hockey will be remembered as the last for the Hall of Fame voice that spent 40 of those years behind the mic as part of 58-year career in sports broadcasting.
Stevens broadcast his first Amerks regular season game Oct. 10, 1986 against Baltimore. His last came Apr. 19, 2026 at Hershey. What occurred during those 14,436 days in-between were magical moments, Calder Cup celebrations, an endless amount of laughter through his wittiness, and countless memories that live rent-free in the minds of Amerks fans whom Stevens soundtracked the childhoods of.
Stevens retires as the longest-tenured voice in the 90-year history of the American Hockey League. He won two Calder Cups, two James H. Ellery Awards, was inducted into the Amerks Hall of Fame, and was immortalized forever within the confines of Blue Cross Arena with the naming of the Don Stevens Press Box.