Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com
This is the first in a two-part series reviewing the Rochester Americans season.
While the majority in Sabreland was obsessing over the NHL lottery last Saturday night, hoping that the gold logo would come up Buffalo, the Rochester Americans were in the midst of a three-game-in-three-night season finale' that featured two road games in a row to end the season. When the ping-pong balls came up Edmonton, Rochester was in Binghamton in the second to last game of a long, trying season.
In contrast to the supreme focus of Buffalo hockey fans and media on the circus that was "McEichel" all season, those in Rochester, a mere 60 miles east, were of the casual, detached variety, even when it came to the climax that was the NHL lottery. "We were in the middle of a game," said long time Amerks broadcaster Don Stevens of the lottery draw. "I don't think there was a lot said about it."
Stevens has been around Amerks hockey for a long time. Next season will be his 30th as the voice of the Rochester Americans, most of it with the team as the Sabres affiliate. He's seen a lot of players come through the ranks ranging from those who go on to have stellar NHL careers, to those couldn't make it at the AHL-level and all points in between. Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel will be two draft picks that by-pass the AHL entirely. If the NHL lottery barely made a blip on the Rochester radar, it's to be expected as the Amerks wouldn't be directly affected by either player.
What does concern the Amerks, however, are the players coming through the ranks, how they develop and whether or not the group of players they ice can win as a team. As with all minor league affiliates there's a mix of young and old, of NHL draft picks and free agents, players of all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of experience coming together at the AHL level. Yet, as an affiliate of an NHL franchise, those teams are in a constant state of flux.
As a feeder tube for the NHL, AHL rosters are at the mercy of the parent club. What happens in the NHL, although it's a separate entity, directly affects the minor league affiliate. During the summer the parent club stocks the organization with draft picks and free agents. After the NHL training camp and preseason is finished, players are sent to their respective developmental leagues and about a week later the AHL starts it's season. If there are injuries and/or trades involving the parent club during the season, the AHL club provides the players. And when their own lineup gets thinned, they need to restock either through an ECHL affiliate or tryout contracts.
It's a standard NHL/AHL relationship. "I've always said," remarked Stevens, "that at the American Hockey League level you just do not control your own destiny. We did use a lot of players this year, but it's been worse."
This season, there was a lot of player movement and injuries in Buffalo and in Rochester leading to 50 players pulling on an Amerks jersey. It's the highest number of players since 1980-81 when 52 players were on the Amerks roster as an affiliate of Buffalo. In 2009-10 and 2010-11 Rochester dressed 55 and 56 players, respectively when the Amerks were affiliated with the Florida Panthers. Normally the figure is in the mid-30's.
Amerks captain Drew Bagnall has never seen it worse. Bagnall's been in the AHL for eight seasons and he was quoted as saying that the turnover was 10 times worse than he's ever seen. An exaggeration? Maybe. Although Rochester head coach Chadd Cassidy said many of the players he talked with in exit interviews echoed that sentiment. "It's funny, again, talking to the players," he said with a bit of a smile of having made it through the season with his wits about him, "when the players tell you things like that, about how crazy it was coming into the locker room after being sent down or coming back from an injury and not knowing five, seven or eight guys on the team at that particular time.
"That was one of our biggest challenges this season of building up that continuity of having a consistent lineup and having our leadership in place."
Cassidy did qualify that statement a little later saying that turnover wasn't an excuse for their poor season as he and the organization he coaches for knows what they signed up for, but they do have a point.
The problems this season for the Amerks, who finished 27th in the league with a 29-41-6 record, went deeper than the typical, or even inordinate, number call-ups and injuries. The players Cassidy was given on the whole lacked in certain areas, most notably in the "grit" and "sandpaper" department.
After a strong 6-2 start where the team was getting contributions up and down the lineup and the goaltending was holding up, "it went south." By mid-December they'd taken a 10-17-1 nose-dive to the lower part of the standings. The start was a direct result of a skilled team firing on all cylinders. "What I'm liking with the team," said Stevens of the team at the 10-game mark, "is how spread out the scoring is. [There are] seven players right now with either eight or nine points which shows how well rounded the team is." Center Phil Varone, winger Joel Armia and defenseman Chad Ruhwedel had nine points each after 10 games while forwards Mikhail Grigorenko, Tim Schaller, Johan Larsson and Luke Adam had eight points each.
But the scoring dried up, the goaltending weakened and the team, according to Stevens, was just plain underachieving. "To that point we didn't have injuries, there weren't recalls, we had the personnel we needed," he said, "but they couldn't seem to win."
Perhaps the biggest reason may have been their play in front of the net as they weren't controlling the "bloody-nose" areas of the ice. It takes a certain character to be willing to work those areas and there didn't seem to be very many willing to take on that role. "When we were a full roster, we lacked a little bit of sandpaper," said Cassidy in his post-season presser. "We had a lot of skill and had a lot of guys who could make plays, but I think the thing that hurt us in the beginning of the year is, you [need] guys who are going to win those greasy battles for pucks or [battles] in the tight areas and we didn't have enough of those early in the year.
"You [need] to have guys who are willing to go to the net and play a gritty game. I thought we struggled with that."
That net presence was missing in the defensive zone as well, something that was pointed out by Stevens when we chatted about the team back in January. "The one thing [the Amerks] lack is aggressiveness not only in front of the offensive net but aggressiveness in front of their own net," remarked Stevens at that time. "I don't think they're big and strong enough in front of the net."
When the hard-nosed Bagnall suffered an injury on November 7th, it was even worse. He missed most of November, appeared in four games, then suffered another injury that sidelined him until late December. Which would coincide with the team's rough stretch.
The 6'3" 215 lb. Bagnall was the only d-man on the Amerks roster, other than Nick Petrecki who played in only 19 games, that would make a player pay for being in front of his goalie. Stevens called Bagnall "a big body, one that punishes the other team's forwards who are camped on the doorstep." Without him the goalies were at the mercy of the opposition as they made a home on their doorstep. "There wasn't enough grit on the backend," said Stevens. "The other teams found it fairly comfortable playing in front of our goalie."
This isn't a knock at the players themselves as they are who they are, it's more the construct of the team, as laid out mostly by a regime that leaned heavily towards the "soft, but skilled" type of player. Many have been saying that for years about the Sabres and Stevens brought it to the fore again while reviewing the 2014-15 Amerks season. "The organization just needs to have some very hard-nosed kind of players. There just wasn't enough grit on this team," he said.
Bagnall will become an unrestricted free agent July 1st and he's said he want's to come back. "I’ve made it known to Buffalo that I would love to come back and be a part of the Amerks next year,” Bagnall said. “I guess we'll see where it goes.”
"I can’t imagine there are a lot of guys in this league that are better leaders and captains than Drew,” said Cassidy.
As of right now, Cassidy's future is up in the air as well.
If you measure his success by wins and losses, then it's a pretty easy decision. A 27th place finish by a coach who was hired by the previous regime is usually a harbinger of change. Those are perfect excuses to bring about change without it being an affront to those involved. "We want to move in a new direction," is the classic line.
Tomorrow, a look at some individual player development and where the team goes from here.
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