On a Sunday afternoon in The Flower City, the Rochester Americans looked to go up 2-0 in the Calder Cup Playoffs. It was Game 2 of the best-of-five series versus their rivals, the Syracuse Crunch. The Americans won 3-2 back on Friday, April 26 with a game-winning goal from Isak Rosen. Just like Game 1, the second game of the series brought incredible goals, highlight saves & so much more. Furthermore, it brought the fireworks and even some controversy in overtime. How did it all shake out in the North Division Semi-Final for the Western New York Rivalry?
The Americans Vets Lead the Way
In game one, it was the Swedish young guns scored for the Americans in the win. However, it was the veterans who stepped up in game two. Rochester got a 1-0 lead in the first period thanks to their captain Michael Mersch on the powerplay. Just over halfway in the period, there was a mad scramble out front of the Crunch net with Jiri Kulich and Mason Jobst whacking away. In the middle of the fire drill, the Americans captain in Mersch boxed out a Crunch defender and backhanded the puck into the net past netminder Brandon Halverson.
Related: Americans Survive Game 1 to Take Series Lead Over Crunch
The goal was the Amerks’ second straight game with a man-advantage tally and grabbing the lead first again. It was the only powerplay the Americans got all game compared to the two that the Crunch received. Rochester’s penalty kill units did not allow a powerplay goal in back-to-back games.
The second period saw the Americans just like on Friday go up 2-0 after a great sequence from Lukas Rousek and Linus Weissbach. After a great individual effort in the neutral zone by Rousek, he went into the zone and kept his head up. Seeing a streaking Weissbach enter the Crunch zone did a spin-o-rama pass to a wide-open Linus. Weissbach gathered the puck and wristed the puck into the net past Halverson.
Unfortunately, the Crunch did get one back with less than a minute left in the second period from Jordy Bellerive. The Crunch in the third period scored two goals before the halfway point. Goals from Gage Goncalves and Sean Day saw Syracuse take their first lead of the game & series.
Jobst. Mason Jobst.
In consecutive games, the Americans gave up a two-goal lead to the Crunch. As the period was winding down, Rochester was throwing everything along with the kitchen sink at Halverson. As something that became a thing for the team in the second half of the season, the Americans’ no-quit mentality saw them tie the game.
The third Americans veteran came up clutch for them as Jobst had himself a multi-point game. He tied it up with under four minutes left in regulation. While having a Crunch player on his back, Jobst, while sliding on one knee was able to get the puck over the shoulder of Halverson to force overtime.
Controversy in Overtime
For the first time in the series, the Americans and Crunch took action to sudden death overtime. Throughout the game, especially in the third period and overtime, there were not a lot of penalty calls. Furthermore, there were not many controversial calls for the most part. However, that changed when the referees called a questionable icing call when the play should have continued. The officiating crew could have gone back and determined they missed the call and set the faceoff to the neutral zone. That was not the case, and the faceoff would be in the Americans zone.
On the ensuing draw, the Crunch scored the game-winning goal off a shot from Gabriel Fortier. The game ended 4-3 with Syracuse tying the series 1-1 with a shower of chants from the fans at Blue Cross Arena. Amid the chaos, Devon Levi stopped 30 of 34 shots in the loss for the Americans.
Americans head coach Seth Appert was not happy about the call and stayed on the bench after the goal to get an explanation from the referees. Nonetheless, the series is tied and heading back to Syracuse for Game 3 on Thursday, May 2.
Appert Post Game
After the game, Seth Appert talked about not giving up three faceoff goals to the Crunch. He mentioned the centers needed to do a better job along with the defense boxing out their man. Appert was unhappy with the call preceding the game-winner.
“…it’s a big call to blow too and have four guys not want to get together and confer to decide whether it’s the right call or not.” In a follow-up question about the ref’s explanation, Appert said, “Nothing. They said it was icing.”
While giving up three faceoff goals did not help, getting a questionable icing and not talking about it first led to the Crunch winning the game and tying the series. Now it comes down to getting ready for Thursday and Game 3 for Appert and the Americans in Syracuse.
The puck drop is at 7:00 pm Eastern at Upstate Medical University Arena to see who will take a 2-1 series lead in the Best-of-5 matchup in the North Division Semi-final. Whoever wins the series will face the winner of the Cleveland Monsters and the Belleville Senators in the North Division Final.
