Despite outshooting the Comets 47 to 22, Rochester drops a 5-4 contest.
By CRAIG POTTER
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Mistakes at times from the offense, defense, and goaltending proved costly for the Rochester Americans on Friday night before 6,756 fans at the Blue Cross Arena against the Utica Comets.
“Worst of the season,” said Amerks coach Chris Taylor of the overall performance. “Total team effort. Total team loss.
“We let in too many goals, especially against a team that doesn’t have close to what we have roster(-wise). Our team should never give up five goals.”
The Amerks fired a season-high 47 shots and limited Utica to 22, but could not come up with a victory as they lost, 5-4.
“You play a good team, it’s going to work out like that sometimes,” said Amerks forward Wayne Simpson. “They did put a lot of pressure on us, maybe forced mistakes. You’ve just got to bare down and try to play smarter hockey tomorrow night (in Binghamton).”
The contest was tied 3 times and had 2 lead changes.
“We had some good things and we had some bad things,” Taylor added. “Our forwards had some good moments, then bad, and same with our defensemen and goaltender. I think we are better than we played tonight, and with the depth we have, we should never allow five goals in a game.”
Despite yielding 4 goals, Utica goalie Richard Bachman came up with some huge saves at critical times to thwart the Amerks as the Comets netminder finished with 43 saves to earn the win.
The Comets grabbed the early lead, but Simpson knotted the count 1-1 as he converted a pass from Kevin Porter for the goal.
Rochester took it’s only lead of the game midway through the first period on a power play goal by Danny O’Regan.
However, the Amerks committed 2 of their 6 penalties to give the Comets a 2-man advantage for 54 seconds. Utica capitalized on the 2-man advantage to even the count at 2-2.
The Comets continued to press their advantage and scored again on the remaining power play to forge ahead 3-2 against Rochester keeper Adam Wilcox.
Defenseman Jack Dougherty scored his first goal of the season for the Amerks with a shot from the right point to tie the game for the final time at 3-3.
The Comets added insult to injury with a shorthanded goal with 5.6 seconds remaining in the second stanza to take the lead for good at 4-3.
The Rochester netminder wasn’t sharp either, making just 17 saves. Taylor said he did consider putting in Scott Wedgewood, but opted to stay with Wilcox.
“Not everything’s on him,” the coach said.
Rochester defenseman Brendan Guhle had a pass from the left circle get away from him and right into the slot where Comet Cam Darcy fired it past Wilcox on a breakaway for a 5-3 advantage early in the third period.
Sean Malone netted his first goal for the Amerks this season to cut the deficit to one, but the Amerks were unable to score the equalizer.
“Obviously we had our scoring chances, we got almost 50 shots,” said Smith, who tallied 3 assists and has 10 points (3+7) over his last 9 games. “We should be able to find a way to win a game like that, but we let the hang around, hang around, and shot ourselves in the foot.
“We had some unlucky bounces tonight and some tough turnovers. We have to work hard, though, to get the breaks we need, and we did not do that for the entire 60 minutes tonight.”
*NOTES — Swedish rookie defenseman Lawrence Pilut was re-assigned to the Amerks on Friday after being called up to the Buffalo Sabres 2 days ago…The Amerks left after the game for Binghamton where they will take on the Devils Saturday night
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Danny O’Regan pp goal
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Rochester Americans forward Danny O’Regan (65) scores on a power play in the first period to give the Amerks a 2-1 lead over the Utica Comets on Friday night before 6,756 fans at the Blue Cross Arena. However, the Amerks ended up losing the game, 5-4.