Patrick WilliamsTheAHL.com Features Writer
Good days have been abounding recently in Rochester, where a six-game winning streak has pushed the Americans to the top of the North Division, one point ahead of Cleveland.
High hopes ahead Konsta Helenius again Anton Wahlberg are back in town from the IIHF World Junior Championship in Ottawa. Playing for Finland, Helenus won the silver medal when he had six assists in seven games. Wahlberg tied for fourth in the tournament with eight points in seven games (four goals, four assists) against Sweden. Both prospects are in their first full AHL seasons before they even turn 20. Helenus, at 18 years and 8 months the youngest player in the AHL this season, was selected 14th overall by Buffalo in the NHL Draft last June and scored 17 points. (six goals, 11 assists) in his 28 games with the Americans. The 19-year-old Wahlberg has 10 points (four goals, six assists) in 25 games after joining the organization as a 2023 second-round pick.
On Tuesday, one of the most prominent stories of the Sabers this season was seen, ahead of Amerks Tyson Kozakget another recall from Buffalo. A 2021 seventh-round pick, the 22-year-old spent his first two seasons establishing himself in Rochester before being promoted to Buffalo in December, where he collected his first NHL goal in his second game there. With 12 points (six goals, six assists) in 24 games with Rochester, Kozak has already matched his AHL season high.
On Wednesday, two other key pieces of the Sabers’ future got good news in the AHL, as goalies Devon Levy and forward Isak Rosén earned invitations to the 2025 AHL All-Star Classic presented by Spotlight 29 Casino on Feb. 2-3. It will be the second consecutive All-Star appearance for Rosén, 21, who has 27 points (13 goals, 14 assists) in 30 games for Rochester. Levi split his first two seasons between Rochester and Buffalo; The 23-year-old has gone 11-2-1 with a 2.19 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage in 14 games for the Amerks this year.
Rochester showed early season promise in building a six-game winning streak, but lost seven of its next eight games to fall to 8-7-3-0 at US Thanksgiving. But they’ve racked up 13 wins in 15 contests since then, and have shown they can handle the AHL road again, with a 15-3-1-0 record (including an eight-game winning streak) and a plus-25 goal differential. at home. Even when games and bus hours piled up, they were able to stick to their schedule and deliver a strong nightly effort.
Levi’s arrival from Buffalo on November 18 helped turn the tide for the Americans. He has allowed two or fewer goals in nine of his 14 starts, including shutouts of Syracuse on Nov. 29 and Charlotte on Dec. 7.
“As a coach,” Amerks who is a coach Michael Leone he said on the team’s website on Wednesday, “I have a lot of respect for our team in the way they always work to show every game and compete and work.”
The Amerks picked up wins at Springfield and Bridgeport last weekend to put them in an easy stretch of their schedule. They sit at the top, but only seven points separate them from the fifth-placed Crunch. They have a chance to win something this weekend, when Utica comes to town on Friday before another short trip to Syracuse the following night.
The management of Buffalo has made it clear that the Amerks competing team is a necessary part of the development of the players. The Sabers entered Seth Appert in 2020 to leave the Rochester bench, and the club reached the North Division finals in 2022 before taking Hershey to six games in the Eastern Conference Finals the following year. Appert is now in Buffalo as an assistant head coach Lindy Ruffand Leone took over following a successful stint with Green Bay of the United States Hockey League and the United States National Team Development Program.
Leone’s mandate was very similar to Appert’s: to develop young talent and help them make meaningful plays from the bottom all the way to the Calder Cup Playoffs. And part of that process is learning how to play a mature, NHL-style game individually and collectively. Protect the leads. Balance risk versus reward. Manage shift length.
Some nights the Americans are able to outshine the opposition. They scored 15 goals in a two-game road trip to Belleville in mid-December. They have scored 26 goals while winning six games. But they also struggled with the game management, especially when they skated in November. One bad shift or one poorly timed decision can mean lost points even in a well-played game.
However, lately, rather than late-game incidents, the Americans have been shutting out opponents – or at least not seeing one goal surrendered instead of two or three. Learning to do that is one key difference between the AHL level and the levels further down the development chain.
And that commitment is noticed by their head coach.
“I think our boys have found what it takes to win regularly at this level,” said Leone. “You feel on the bench with 10 minutes to go before the end of the game, then we get up. As a coach, you are free because they say the right things and you just stand there and admire the boys who do that.”
In the American Hockey League for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams and currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor to SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for the league’s top scorer in 2016.
