Recapping Last Night’s Overtime Loss

Last night the Rochester Americans lost to the 31st place Binghamton Devils by a score of 4-3 in front of 8,367 fans. The game-winning goal came courtesy of atrocious officiating. 3:12 into overtime, Taylor Leier was called for tripping. Binghamton had gotten in on net with little resistance and Leier was following through to the trapezoid to prevent a follow-up scoring chance. His stick was near the feet of his man as the Binghamton player fell to the ice. The call was soft at best and it put the Amerks down a man, forced to defend a 4 on 3 power play for Binghamton. During that penalty kill Victor Olofsson recovered the puck in the slot and took off down ice. That’s when Brett Seney jumped off the bench and made a play on Olofsson — both making contact with Olofsson and causing Olofsson to defend against the defensive play. The problem is that Seney jumped off the bench several seconds before the man he was replacing got to the bench. Since Seney immediately entered the play, he was in violation of a textbook example of too many men. The refs did not make a call and Olofsson’s drive did not result in a goal. The next time down the ice Binghamton breached the zone in what might have been an offsides drive and ultimately scored. While the offsides call was perhaps too close to make, the too many men call was not.

As infuriating as the officiating was, the game never should have went to overtime. The Amerks had a slow start to the game but managed to net two goals by the end of the 1st period. Will Borgen and Victor Olofsson scored twice within 2:09 of each other. To start the 2nd period, Brandon Braddock and Brett Seney scored twice for Binghamton within 19 seconds of each other. Eric Tangradi scored a little under the 6 minute mark of the 2nd to give Binghamton the lead through 2 periods. Rasmus Asplund scored 1:55 into the 3rd period, tying the game at 3. That gave the Amerks 18 full minutes to net a go ahead goal against the last place Devils, but they were unable to do so. An embarrassingly bad 2nd period was too much to overcome.

The Amerks sit securely in second place in the North Division, but last night’s loss raises serious questions about the Amerks’ ability to win at home in front of a big crowd and push through the first round of the playoffs. The Rochester Americans have a chance to redeem themselves in Syracuse at 7pm tonight.

Chris Schiffner is the man behind the Amerks Extra Twitter feed and the chief editor of AmerksExtra.com. Chris founded Amerks Extra in order to provide fans with a voice during one of the most tumultuous periods in the organization's history. Amerks Extra has evolved into a leading source for Amerks news and discussion. When not covering Amerks Hockey, Chris is on the ice playing the game himself.
 

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *