**This Week’s Storylines**
**A weekend sweep of Laval has the Amerks tied atop the Eastern Conference standings with Toronto and five points back of the league-leading Manitoba Moose.
**The Amerks have earned at least one point in 16 of their first 17 road games this season with only one regulation loss, a 5-0 setback at Binghamton on Nov. 17. Rochester owns the AHL’s second-best record on the road with an 11-1-3-2 mark and have outscored its opposition 54-45. The Amerks come into the final week of December riding an AHL-best 10-game road point streak dating back to Nov. 22 (7-0-2-1).
**Amerks goaltender Linus Ullmark was named the CCM/AHL Player of the Week for period ending Dec. 24, 2017 earlier today. Ullmark stopped 65 of the 68 shots he faced in two starts for the Amerks last week, going 2-0-0 with a 1.46 goals-against average and a .956 save percentage as Rochester continued to surge towards the top of the Eastern Conference standings. He’s currently tied for the AHL lead in wins and ranks first in saves (623) and minutes played (1,243).
**Despite being held scoreless in three straight games for the first time all season, C.J. Smith remains tied for sixth in the AHL in scoring. He paces the team in all offensive categories with 10 goals, 20 assists and 30 points while being one of just four skaters to appear in all 31 games thus far this season. His 81 shots and plus-13 on-ice rating are also tops on the team. The Des Moines, Iowa, native currently ranks second in scoring among all AHL rookies, while his 20 assists lead all first-year skaters and are sixth-most in the league.
** The Amerks own three of the top 13 point-producing defensemen in the AHL in Zach Redmond, Stuart Percy and rookie Brendan Guhle, with Redmond and Percy accounting for half of the team’s top four point-getters. Redmond, who leads all Amerks defensemen with 21 points (7+14) through 23 games, is tied for fourth in goals by a defensemen with seven, one shy of matching his career-high of eight he set twice as a member of the St. John’s IceCaps. The veteran blueliner is also tied for third in points coming into the week. Guhle, meanwhile, ranks third in scoring among all AHL rookie defensemen with 17 points (6+11) while his six goals are second among first-year blueliners in the league.
**The Amerks return from the Christmas break this week with three games in four nights to close out the 2017 calendar year. Rochester makes its first trip to Ricoh Coliseum on Friday to take on the Toronto Marlies in a crucial first-place matchup in between a pair of get-togethers with the Laval Rocket to usher in the New Year.
