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Jul 11, 2024
By Andrew Mossbrooks | @Mossbrooks48
The 2024-25 American Hockey League schedule has been released and we are three short months away from Amerks hockey!
A new season is exciting for every team, but with Rochester coming off a second-place finish and third straight playoff berth, the feeling is amplified. October 11 at Blue Cross Arena marks the start of season 69 in the rich history of the Rochester Americans. With that, let’s look at some games and moments that fall in the can’t miss category for the upcoming Amerks season:
For a third straight season, the Amerks will open their 72-game slate on home ice, hosting the Belleville Senators on the first night of the 2024-25 AHL campaign. Rochester earned points in four of eight meetings with Ottawa’s AHL affiliate last season and will face-off with Belleville just as many times this upcoming year.
A new era of Amerks hockey begins with the home opener, as head coach Michael Leone will make his professional head coaching debut behind the bench. This comes off the heels of former bench boss Seth Appert, who spent four seasons in Rochester, getting promoted to an assistant coaching role with the Buffalo Sabres. Leone, 36, became the 34th head coach in team history when his hiring was announced on June 6.
A month later, free agency began. Like any year, addition comes with subtraction. While the likes of Peter Tischke will go back to wearing the red, white, and blue, defenseman Jeremy Davies could return to the Flower City dawning a different jersey. The 27-year-old inked a two-way contract with Ottawa and could be leading the charge on Belleville’s blueline come Oct. 11. Davies had back-to-back 66-game seasons with the Amerks, accumulating 58 points (23+35) along the way. It would be a bittersweet reunion for the Amerks’ fanbase and the offensively gifted defenseman who was beloved by them.
The defending North Division champions will be in the building for the Amerks’ third home game of the season when the Cleveland Monsters make their first of four visits to Rochester. On the final day of the 2023-24 regular season, the Amerks tentatively owned first place in the North Division, before Cleveland would go on to win its final game of the year to finish in a tie with the Amerks, owning 88 points. Because of the tiebreaker, the Monsters would secure first place in the division entering the Calder Cup Playoffs.
From there, the Monsters got past Belleville before sweeping Syracuse to emerge from the North and play in the Eastern Conference Finals as the Amerks did the prior postseason. The Amerks won four of the final five meetings last season against Cleveland.
The Amerks enter a new season seven wins shy of a historic mark. With 2,493 wins amassed over their 68 seasons, Rochester can reach 2,500 regular season victories as soon as Nov. 1, 2024 in Utica, should they go undefeated to start the season. The Hershey Bears are the only other team in AHL history to reach that milestone.
Additionally, the 32nd game of the season will be Rochester’s first game of 2025, slated for Jan. 3 in Springfield. It also marks the team’s 5,200th all-time game.
Black Friday games often draw large crowds to Blue Cross Arena and this year’s game should be no different, especially considering the opponent. Fresh off their 13th Calder Cup and second in as many seasons, the Hershey Bears will return to downtown Rochester to rekindle a rivalry between the AHL’s two longest-tenured franchises.
Hershey topped Coachella Valley to capture the Calder Cup in both 2023 and 2024. The former came following the Bears emerging in a six-game Eastern Conference Finals series against the Amerks.
Hard to believe it will take a quarter of the season until we get a Rochester-Syracuse matchup, but it all comes to a head on the final weekend of November. The Amerks and Crunch meet for a home-and-home weekend that starts at Blue Cross Arena Nov. 29. It marks the first meeting between the rivals since Syracuse skated out of Rochester with a series-clinching Game 5 victory in the North Division Semifinals back on May 10.
The I-90 rivalry gets renewed in what’s the first of 12 meetings between the two sides. The Amerks posted a 5-5-2-0 record against Syracuse through the regular season.
The Amerks and Utica Comets get together in downtown Rochester for the final game of the calendar year at Blue Cross Arena before entering 2025. The Amerks owned their feud with Utica last season, boasting an 8-3-1 mark in 12 encounters with the Comets.
Brett Murray and Mason Jobst, both of whom have re-signed with the Sabres’ organization, led Rochester with seven points each against Utica. Murray scored four goals and added three assists, while Jobst netted three goals with four helpers.
After signing a one-year, two-way contract for the 2024-25 season, Brett Murray is set to spend a sixth year in the Sabres’ organization and could find himself hitting benchmarks in Rochester. Murray, a fourth-round Buffalo draft pick in 2016, needs 41 games with the Amerks to reach 300 with the team. Perfect attendance could see him hit that milestone as soon as Jan. 31 at Blue Cross Arena when the Amerks faceoff with Syracuse, a team Murray has had several memorable moments against.
In his time as an Amerk, Murray has registered 157 points (73+84).
A healthy season could see veteran defenseman Ethan Prow reach another milestone. The Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, native enters his 10th professional season just 53 games away from reaching 500 as a pro. Prow, who turns 32 in November, could reach 500 games as soon as Feb. 28, 2025, in Utica, should he play every game up to that point. Thus far, the defenseman has skated in 413 AHL games, 26 in the DEL, along with four in the ECHL and four with the Buffalo Sabres in the NHL during the 2021-22 season.
Prow enters his fourth season with the Amerks having played 193 of his 413 AHL games with the franchise. Across his AHL tenure, Prow has scored 52 goals and 173 assists for 225 points.
As the Amerks reach the home stretch of their 69th regular season, they can be reminded of a historical note from their first ever year as a franchise. On April 16, 2025, the Amerks will host Cleveland exactly 25,000 days after getting their first ever win on Nov. 4, 1956. Then, an upstart Americans team picked up a 3-1 win on home ice at the War Memorial against the Springfield Indians. That year saw Bronco Horvath lead the 1956-57 Amerks with 37 goals and 81 points. It’s also worth noting that Rochester’s first ever game was played against a Cleveland Barons roster that would go on to win a Calder Cup by season’s end.
The Amerks will close out their 69th regular season with a home-and-home against Toronto, beginning with the Marlies visiting Rochester Friday night. Who knows where the Amerks will be by that point. The hope is clinching a playoff berth under rookie head coach Leone and preparing to pursue a seventh Calder Cup. A lot can happen between Oct.11 and the final weekend of the season. The North Division has been a consistent challenge for each of the seven teams involved.
Last season saw Rochester clinch a playoff berth with multiple weeks remaining in the season. A year prior it took them until the final weekend to know whether they were in or out.
Each season tells a different story. This one will begin as many before it with hockey in the fall. What happens from there on could lead to a cup in the summer.
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