TACO BELL WRAP-UP: AMERKS KICK-OFF 70TH SEASON
Amerks split weekend series with Marlies to start 2025-26 campaign
Oct 13, 2025By Andrew Mossbrooks | @ Mossbrooks48
The Rochester Americans (1-1-0-0) opened their historic 70th-anniversary season over the weekend, earning their first pair of standings points with a 4-3 win win in front of their home crowd Friday night over the Toronto Marlies. Less than 24 hours later, the Maple Leafs’ AHL affiliate flipped the script on their home opener via a 4-1 final.
Amerks head coach Michael Leone said earlier in the week that he was more focused on the process than the outcome when it came to the first couple of games this season. While the result was a weekend split against Toronto, the process looks fruitful, as does the future of this season for the red, white, and blue.
SWEDE PAIR OF PLAYERS
Amerks forwards Isak Rosén and Noah Östlund picked up where they left off from a season ago as two of Rochester’s top dynamic players. The pair of Swedish Sabres prospects each collected three points over the first two games of the season, with Östlund posting three assists and Rosén scoring the first two goals of Rochester’s season on the power-play, before adding an assist on Jake Leschyshyn’s man-up conversion Saturday.
“I’m just trying to show that I can be really good for this level,” said Rosén. “I think I can do it consistently like I did it all last year, but it's more than just points and stuff like that. It's been playing hard on pucks and being hard to play against, and I think that's a thing that, I'm trying to do better this year, too.”
The fourth-year Amerk has led Rochester in scoring each of the last two seasons, including his career best 2024-25 campaign where the 22-year-old amassed 28 goals and 27 assists for 55 points. Over his 196-game tenure as an Amerk, Rosén has corralled 145 points (64+81). The Sabres 14th overall pick from the 2021 NHL Draft has appeared in 15 NHL games over the last two seasons.
Additionally, since the start of last season, the Amerks are an astounding 22-1 when Rosén scores.
Östlund enters his second season with Rochester after a standout rookie run. After missing the first two months of the season with an upper-body injury, the Nykvarn, Sweden product put together a 36-point (19+17) year, leading all Amerks rookies in goal scoring and finishing the season with 35 points over his final 33 games. In the midst of his tear, Östlund was awarded with an eight-game call-up to the Sabres. Like Rosén, Östlund was plucked out of the first round when Buffalo selected him 16th overall in 2022.
POWER ON
A year after finishing 27th in power-play efficiency on home ice, the Amerks went two-for-five to begin their season at Blue Cross Arena, with Rosén scoring late in the first and early in period two during five-on-four advantages.
Last season’s power-play was a tale of two sides for the red, white, and blue. While laboring at home, the team thrived away from the Flower City, owning the fourth-best power-play on the road, operating at 21% through the 2024-25 slate. Rochester’s top two power-play goal-scorers from a year ago (Brett Murray, Mason Jobst) are no longer with the organization, but forwards Rosén, Östlund, Anton Wahlberg, Riley Fiddler-Schultz, and Konsta Helenius are all back for the 2025-26 season and combined for 20 tallies on the power play.
Rochester finished the weekend three-for-seven on the power-play. While a modest sample size, their man-advantage leads the North Division.
TOPI IN TORONTO
Saturday evening saw the highly anticipated debut of Sabres prospect and goaltender Topias Leinonen, who made his North American pro debut for the Amerks.
The 21-year-old turned aside 17 shots on a lighter night of work with just 20 shots faced, though managed to turn heads multiple times. In the second period, the Finnish netminder stopped Marlies center Luke Haymes from the left-wing side during a two-on-one play. Early in the third, winger Bo Groulx was sprung for a breakaway that Leinonen used his glove to paw aside.
The 6-foot-5 goaltender went 13-10-0 playing professionally in Sweden a season ago. His 2.31 goals-against average in the Allsvenskan league ranked sixth, while his .910 save percentage placed him eighth amongst his peers.
Leinonen was Buffalo’s 41st overall pick in the second round of the 2022 NHL Draft.
COMING UP NEXT
Saturday’s game in Toronto began the first road trip of the season for the Amerks, who play three straight away from Blue Cross Arena. That run continues by taking the team back to the Empire State for a meeting with Utica Friday, followed by Syracuse Saturday in a rematch from last year’s North Division Semifinal series that ended in the Amerks sweeping the Crunch with the exclamation point coming in Game 3 at Syracuse.