Amerks cruise to 7-3 win over Monsters

Another night of multi-point efforts from four different skaters coupled with a dominant four-goal second-period propelled the Rochester Americans (2-1-0-0) to a convincing 7-3 victory over the Cleveland Monsters (0-1-0-0) Friday at the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse.

Rochester was led offensively by C.J. Smith (2+1), Jean-Sebastien Dea (2+0), Mattias Samuelsson (1+1) and Ryan Jones (0+2), all of whom recorded multi-point efforts, the most through Rochester’s first three games of the young season for the Amerks. Remi Elie (0+1) and Oskari Laaksonen (0+1) both tacked on an assist to push their point streaks to two games apiece, while Arttu Ruotsalainen (0+1) added a helper to extend his to three. Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (2-0-0) made 43 saves in his second straight start, establishing a new career-high.

Former Buffalo Sabre Nathan Gerbe (1+0) started the scoring for the Monsters with his first goal of the year. Former Amerks forward Zac Dalpe (1+0) and Dillon Simpson (1+0) followed suit with their first markers of the year, while Trey Fix-Wolansky (0+1), Thomas Schemitsch (0+1) and Cliff Pu (0+1) all added helpers on the Monsters three goals of the contest. Veteran goaltender Brad Thiessen (0-1-0) got the start in net for Cleveland and made saves on 27 of the 33 shots he faced.

Facing a two-goal deficit to begin the second period, the Amerks loaded four goals onto the scoresheet with three coming in a span of 7:23.

Smith, who was reassigned to Rochester from the Sabres taxi squad earlier in the day, got the Amerks on the board first with his first goal of the year just 41 seconds into the second stanza. The Amerks forward picked up a loose rebound and flipped it in behind Thiessen.