AMERKS WEEK 10 ROUND-UP
Appert discusses the weekend sweep in Charlotte, the upcoming World Junior Championship and the performance of Malcolm Subban
Dec 21, 2022By Suzie Cool
It’s hard to believe that we’re already in Week 10 of the 2022-23 American Hockey League campaign and the Rochester Americans are surging into the holiday season with a three-game win streak.
At this point in the year, the Amerks are sitting in second place in the North Division, have two young forwards headed to the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship and are fresh off their first shutout of the season thanks to goaltender Malcolm Subban.
We cover it all, and more, with Amerks head coach Seth Appert in this week’s round-up.
ROSEN AND KULICH HEADED TO 2023 IIHF WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP
Last week, forwards Isak Rosen and Jiri Kulich were named to Sweden and Czech Republic’s rosters for the upcoming 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship. On Monday, the pair of rookies were officially loaned by the Buffalo Sabres to their team respective national teams.
It helps that both the Amerks rookies had standout weekends in Charlotte prior to their departure.
“It was an impressive weekend,” said Appert when asked about the rookie forwards efforts in Charlotte this past weekend. “Kulie (Kulich) had two points and played center both games. Rosen was really good and had a big assist to break the game open on Saturday.”
For Rosen, he’ll be representing his home country of Sweden in which the Amerks rookie has already done on three other occasions in 2019, 2021 and 2022, winning bronze medals in back-to-back years.
Kulich has also represented his home country of the Czech Republic during the 2022 IIHF U18 World Championship. In seven games at last year’s event, Kulich recorded eight points on two goals and six assists.
Despite being two of the youngest players in the American Hockey League currently, both Kulich and Rosen remain among the team’ scoring leaders with 16 and 14 points, respectively. Kulich's 16 points tie him for 15th among all AHL rookies while Rosen's 11 assists are tied for ninth-most. Additionally, Kulich tops all Rochester skaters with 57 shots and is tied for the team lead with three power-play goals.
While the rookies’ play on the ice has been quite impressive all season, Appert feels the way Kulich and Rosen have stayed mentally engaged where their feet are currently at is what’s the icing on the cake.
“It'd be really easy for Kulich and Rosen to be thinking about being at the World Juniors. It's a cool tournament to be part of, and they're getting to go back to their age group and back to their friends from their home country, and they were leaving Sunday. So, I was impressed with both of their mental engagement and the fact that they were completely checked in still here in Rochester before going to tackle the next challenge.”
SUBBAN WITH THE SHUTOUT
Subban had himself a weekend against the Checkers, posting 75 saves and a shutout to help the Amerks fly home with a clean sweep from Charlotte.
“I think he's just getting his game timing back and that's something I've said publicly, but also to him all year, it's just going to take time,” Appert said when asked where Subban is really starting to come back to form. “He's barely played the last couple of years and so he's just getting his feel and his timing and his confidence back to where it's been in past years for him.”
A night after making a regular-season career-high 45 saves in a near-perfect performance on Friday against Charlotte, Subban went on to have a flawless effort on Saturday, stopping all 30 shots he faced to backstop the Amerks to a 4-0 shutout win over the Checkers. Now, Subban has won three-straight games and five of his last six. Saturday’s shutout was his first since April 8, 2017, with the Providence Bruins and stopped 75 of the 77 shots he faced this past weekend versus the Checkers.
“In the second half of the game on Friday, he (Subban) was excellent because we were under siege after being up 3-0. They (Charlotte) really pushed, and then on Saturday I thought he was very calm, very collected, but that was one of our better team defensive efforts of the season.”
Appert finished with, “Our D core as a whole all week really did a good job of boxing out, being hard at the front of the net and letting ‘Subbie’ make first saves and took care of second saves for him.”
PUSHING INTO CHRISTMAS
Last week Appert left us with a great quote saying, “Good teams don’t coast into Christmas.” After this weekend in Charlotte, it’s evident that’s not the plan here in Rochester at all and the team looks to continue its three-game push against the Syracuse Crunch this Friday night.
“It will be a big game. They got a really good team there and they're hot right now. They have a very good lineup right now,” said Appert.
Currently, Syracuse sits beneath Rochester in third place in the North Division with 28 points. Just like the Amerks, the Crunch are on a three-game win streak and have five players in forwards Alex Barré-Boulet, Gemel Smith, Simon Ryfors, Felix Robert and defenseman Darren Raddysh all above the 20-point mark on the year already.
Not an easy, veteran lineup to take on right before the holidays, however, Appert has been instilling in his team’s mind that this is the time of the year to stay on track and continue to go full speed ahead.
“We've played some good hockey as of late and, you know, we talked about it Saturday…We've got to get better even though we won. We just got to keep looking long term. We have to keep getting better. Our guys took the challenge this weekend of continuing to get better and we need to do the same thing this week.”
The Amerks return home to begin a three-game homestand this Friday, Dec. 23 when they host the Crunch in the final matchup prior to the annual Christmas break. Game time is slated for a 7:05 p.m. start and will be carried on The Sports Leader 95.7 FM/950 AM The Fan Rochester as well as AHLTV.