By KEVIN OKLOBZIJA
Just one game into the Rochester Americans unveiling of their promotional mantra for this spring’s 2024 Calder Cup playoffs – Proud to be Pesky – it’s already time for a change.
The new rallying cry: How Swede it is.
Swedish-born forwards Anton Wahlberg, Noah Östlund and Isak Rosen scored the goals and Devon Levi stopped 35 shots – including a highlight-package point-blank stop with 4.9 seconds remaining – as the Amerks opened the best-of-five North Division semifinals with a 3-2 victory over the Syracuse Crunch on Friday night.
“I said to the guys after, we’re going to put the tre kronor, the Swedish crown jersey, on,” Amerks coach Seth Appert said. “We were Team Sweden tonight.”
First-period goals by Wahlberg and Ostlund staked the Amerks to a 2-0 lead but the Crunch used goals by Dylan Duke in the second period and Jordy Bellerive 7:59 into the third to tie the score.
The Amerks, however, needed just 2:22 to regain the lead as Rosen, establishing position in the deep left of the slot as the puck was worked point-to-point, tipped in a Zach Metsa shot at 10:21.
They were then able to protect the lead, with Levi coming up big, especially during 2 minutes and 28 seconds of frenetic extra-attacker pressure, and will take a 1-0 series lead into Game 2 at 3:05 pm Sunday at Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial, where 7,466 fans watched Friday night. Of the 60 minutes played, the Amerks led for 56:37.
“Even at the end, six-on-five, we were being outnumbered in front of the net but it felt like a solid fort, all five guys holding it down,” Levi said.
While the Amerks did squander their early 2-0 lead, they needed little time to move back ahead, with the player responsible for the tying goal gaining instant redemption.
Metsa lost a puck battle to Bellerive, and soon thereafter the Crunch forward was racing down the ice and firing a wrister from the left circle past Levi.
“Zach Metsa is such an important player for us,” Appert said. “He had the misplay to give them the tying goal. He got stripped by Bellerive and I think he was surprised at the strength of Bellerive; Bellerive is old-man strength and Metsa’s a rookie.
“But there’s a reason Metsa was the captain of a national championship team (at Quinnipiac in 2023) and I had a hunch that his next shift he would be a stud. He jumped into the rush, he had one chance on that rush play, and then he made the delivery to Rosen.”
Just like that, the Amerks were back on top 3-2 and the score never changed.
“We were out for both Syracuse goals,” Rosen said of his line with Ostlund and Jiri Kulich, “so we felt like we needed to get at least one back.”
The final moments were hectic after the Crunch pulled goalie Brandon Halverson at 17:32, but Levi was terrifying.
He stopped a Koepke redirection from between the hash marks at 18:23, denied a one-timer by the always deadly Alex Barre-Boulet and then in an instant was able to jump across his crease to the right to somehow deny Koepke on the rebound .
“I saw the guy taking the one-timer and it hit my pad and I knew right away it was going in the middle of chaos,” Levi said. “I just tried to lift my leg as fast as possible and push over, just try to take the bottom of the net.”
There was nothing goalie-school about the game-saving stop, either.
“Answer chaos with chaos,” Levi said. “There’s no technical save that’s needed in that moment, it’s just keep the puck out of the net.”
The ability to come up big has become a trait for Levi.
“You almost expect it,” Rosen said.
But what impressed Appert more than the 35 saves was the poise and maturity. The first Crunch goal should never have found the net. Duke, deep in the left circle, wristed a nothing shot from a sharp angle but it slithered past Levi.
“The save at the end, that’s his competitiveness and talent, you know that’s always there,” Appert said. “The composure to not be shocked at all after giving up a squeaker is probably more impressive in his first playoff game.”
There’s no time for self-pity, Levi said.
“The most important thing after that goal was leaving it in the past,” he said. “If you’re carrying the weight of the goals that you got scored on, the game starts to get heavy and it’s not fun anymore.”
So now, in this rematch of last year’s first-round series, the Amerks lead. A year ago, they lost the first two games, then pulled off the reverse sweep by winning the next three.
“Obviously we had a bad start last year,” Appert said, “but we also know the other side of it, that one game doesn’t mean anything. But it was a good start; a good start to the series, a good start to the game.
“Teams that win in the playoffs go on runs, they get better throughout the playoffs. We got better last year. We were not good in Games 1 and 2 against Syracuse. We were a way better team in Games 4, 5 and 6 against Hershey a couple series later. So we have to have the maturity and calmness and presence of mind when we come to the rink (Saturday) that we have to be better.”
