The Amerks are home tonight versus the Charlotte Checkers for the first of four games this season between the two teams. This is only the fourth game of the season for the Amerks and the roster has already had some changes. Nathan Paetsch is out for weeks with a lower body injury. Taylor Fedun joins Justin Bailey up in Buffalo on a call up (he’ll be a healthy scratch) and the team added defenseman Stuart Percy on a PTO.
Nick Baptiste, Sean Malone and Steve Moses opted out of skating this morning. Asked about the optional skate Taylor said, “We’ve had a long week of practice. A lot of hitting and stuff. It’s up to the guys how they’re going to perform tonight. If they needed the ice this morning or if they don’t so it’s in their hands how they’re going to come out tonight.”
This will be the first game of the season for both Sean Malone and Conor Allen.
On the flipside, all of the Checkers skated this morning.
Charlotte Checkers with the full squad finished skating off the travel in their game day skate. They have a 3in3 this weekend. pic.twitter.com/FBIXAAJkNM
— Let’s Go Amerks (@LetsGoAmerks) October 20, 2017
A player to watch on the Checkers is Lucas Wallmark who is leading his team with two goals and six assists.
Taylor talked about Wallmark saying, “We have to make sure we’re hard on him, every time he gets the puck we got to make sure we finish right through him.” Guhle said, “can’t give him time and space. Good players want time and space and you have to take that away.”
Two other players to be aware of are Warren Foegele (four goals) and Valentin Zykov (three goals)
Cliche quotes that are always true:
Chris Taylor, “First of all, we have to get off to a better start than we did against Utica.”
Guhle, “We have to come out hard tonight.”
The Amerks lost their only game last weekend falling to the Utica Comets. They came out flat and it was an uphill battle that they never recovered from.
There’s some early early season scoring differences between the two teams:
- Charlotte Checkers: 4 games: 16 GF / 13 GA
- Rochester Americans: 3 games: 6 GF / 5 GA
Asked about the Amerks offense Taylor said they’ve watched a lot of video and have seen six or seven scoring chances over previous games that should have been goals. “We have to get guys in front of the net, we have to get into the dirty areas.” This is only the fourth game of the season and the strength of this team is going to be goaltending and defense.
Starting goalie: Linus Ullmark
Healthy scratches: Eric Cornell and Stuart Percy
Injuries: Alexander Nylander (week to week) and Nathan Paetsch (week to week)
Called up: Justin Bailey and Taylor Fedun
The team
