Rochester notches a 5-2 victory on its first trip to the Quebec city.
LAVAL, QUEBEC — The Rochester Americans won their first game ever against the Laval Rocket, 5-2, on Wednesday night in the first game of a home-and-home series.
The first period ended in a 2-2 tie as former Buffalo Sabre Nick Deslauriers put the Rocket with an unassisted tally.
Colin Blackwell scored his first goal as an Amerk to tie the contest less than two minutes later.
Laval regained the lead a 1:24 later, but Sahir Gill also netted his first goal for Rochester midway through the stanza to knot the count once more.
Despite being outshot 14-6 during the second period and taking three minor penalties, the Amerks escaped the frame with the 3-2 lead, but it did not take long for Rochester to double its cushion to a pair of goals early in the final stanza.
Nick Baptiste tallied his first goal of the season, which proved to be the game-winner, 7:08 into the second stanza.
Blackwell added his second goal in the third period as Baptiste picked up his second assist of the night on the marker.
With Blackwell’s 3-point (2+1) performance, it established a career-high in both goals and points while the two-goal effort was his first multi-point game since Jan. 12, 2016 as a member of the Rockford IceHogs.
Defenseman Casey Nelson closed out the scoring with his first goal of the season at the 16:19 mark.
Linus Ullmark recorded 37 saves in gaining the win.
The two teams square off against one another on Friday at 7:05 pm at the Blue Cross Arena.
*NOTES — Former Amerks defenseman Mike Milbury was the color commentator with announcer Mike Emrick on the NBCSN Wednesday night telecast of the Buffalo Sabres game in Columbus against the Blue Jackets. They mentioned the Amerks many times throughout the telecast, including the final 5-2 score in favor of Rochester. They also mentioned that Don Cherry was a former Amerks coach as well as Columbus coach John Tortorella being a former Amerks coach as well. They briefly talked about how rough the AHL was back then with Milbury fighting a Syracuse player in the hallway.