BIRO BATTLING HIS WAY THROUGH SCORING SLUMP
Feb 24, 2023By Suzie Cool
After a very productive December where Rochester Americans forward Brandon Biro led the team with 16 points on six goals and 10 assists through 10 games, the third-year pro has found himself in a little bit of a slump since the turn of the New Year, producing just three assists over his last 15 games.
“I think the adversity that Brandon is having is only related to points, it’s not related to his performance or his play,” commented Amerks head coach Seth Appert when asked how he can help Biro through this point in the season. “So, I think that's important to understand, but sometimes it's hard to see through that as a young player because you certainly want to help the team win and you know your contributions offensively do help that.”
On top of piling on the points in December, Biro went on to record multi-point efforts in seven of 10 appearances throughout the last calendar month of 2022. That included a six-game stretch between Dec. 9 and Dec. 30, along with ending the year on a career-long seven-game point streak.
So, how can Biro get back to that offensive kind of production?
“I think just not focusing on offense. It's about the process. It's about playing well defensively, giving yourself opportunities to get to play offense, and that doesn't happen if you're trying to cheat the game,” explained Biro when asked how he can turn things around.
Appert echoed the sentiment.
“The biggest thing to do is you don't search for offense. Right now, his (Biro) game is in a great place. His penalty killing is excellent. He’s playing great five-on-five. He plays great team defense. He's creating offensive chances and they're going to start going in. The key is not to start looking for it.”
Despite missing 10 games due to injury, third-year forward Brandon Biro has blazed his way atop the team's scoring lead as he currently shares the team-lead with his 31 points and ranks second with his 22 assists through 37 games. While dating back to last season, Biro has totaled 72 points on 21 goals and 51 assists over his last 85 games with the Amerks.
At the end of the day, with those kinds of numbers, Appert and everyone else knows that another scoring streak is right around the corner for Biro.
“He’s an NHL-ready player with all of his habits, his details, his competitiveness, how he executes our team play in our system. Anything like that is A+ level. Right now, he's just going through a little bit of a spurt where the puck is not going in the net for him, but I don't worry. I think if he continues to play this way, he'll have another stretch where he gets tons of points again, like he did before.”
“Obviously, it's something that I want to improve on and it's not an acceptable kind of a stretch I've gone through, but it's going to happen, and as long as you're playing the right way and you're happy with what you're doing, the work you're putting in, then eventually things are going to are going to change,” finished Biro.
Biro and the Amerks have the opportunity to change that tonight as they host to the Laval Rocket to kick-off a stretch of six games over a nine-day span. The 7:05 p.m. puck drop will be carried on 95.7 FM/950 AM The Fan Rochester as well as AHLTV. It will also be televised locally on tape-delay on CW Rochester.