The team was on the ice at Bill Gray’s Iceplex this morning for a long practice after a disappointing game on Friday night. They made use of two sheets of ice without a break like they have had at the War Memorial during a dry scrape. Finished up on rink 4, walked to rink 1 and right back at it.
Taylor spent a few minutes going over the game again from Friday and not accepting poor performances.
“There’s a lot of instances that I thought we worked hard, we just didn’t work smart enough. We didn’t’ hold on pucks down low. Coming into D zone coverage picked up the wrong men, sometimes two guys on one guy, left another guy open, just not smart hockey. We went over that today, a lot of video and worked on it in practice.”
“Sometimes when you win they can hide things, this week we didn’t hide anything,” Chris Taylor said. “A good work of practice, sometimes that is very good for them to have a week to sit on a loss. Again it’s developing, it’a making sure they know what we need from them and how we want it.”
Talked about getting to the front of the net he said, “The biggest thing for me is you’re being unselfish by standing in front of the net. You’re taking the goalies eyes away. It may not be you that scores the goal, it may not be the guy who shoots the puck, it might be the guy standing off to the side. We need someone take away a goalies eyes, goalies are too good these days.”
“To get guys to in front of the net to where you want to score goals is hard, I don’t understand it, guys want to be off to the side but if you want to score goals in this league and you want to be a successful team you have to have guys in front of the net.”
With Bailey called up and Nathan Paetsch hurt it opens things up on the roster. Sean Malone is expected to play in his first game on Friday, he was skating with Dalton Smith and Adam Krause. Conor Allen is another player looking to crack the lineup, he commented, “we all want to play but you have to be a team guy first.”
Asked about the team mentality vs individual play in terms of development that has been talked about a lot, “You have to learn how to use each other, talk to each other, communicate with each other. Everyone thinks that as an individual you want to have your own personal stats, your own personal this but it doesn’t work that way. You have to be team first. Team player on the ice, team first in the dressing room and just be a great team player.”
Injury Updates:
- Nathan Paetsch is on the week to week list. He blocked a shot in the game on Friday and wasn’t able to return. Paetsch had left the arena with crutches and a boot on his right foot.
- Nothing new on the status of Alexander Nylander. Even if he were to start skating again he’ll still be week to week while he gets himself back into game shape.
Forward lines during practice:
Steve Moses /Â Kevin Porter / Nick Baptiste
Kyle Criscuolo / C.J. Smith /Â Hudson Fasching
Sahir Gill / Colin Blackwell /Â Garret Ross
Dalton Smith / Sean Malone /Â Adam Krause
Based on that and Chris Taylor’s comments it looks like Eric Cornell will be the scratch on Friday. He was skating alongside Brian Gionta.
#Amerks are back to work w/ home games Friday and Saturday. pic.twitter.com/RrZjm5nUZF
— Let’s Go Amerks (@LetsGoAmerks) October 17, 2017
Work to win. #Amerks pic.twitter.com/naqx7VJvAy
— Let’s Go Amerks (@LetsGoAmerks) October 17, 2017
The team has back to back home games this weekend with the Charlotte Checkers on Friday and Utica Comets on Saturday.
