***This Week’s Top Storylines***
*The Amerks opened a season-long four-game road swing on Saturday by holding off the Toronto Marlies for a 3-2 win at Ricoh Coliseum, their fifth victory in six meetings with Toronto this season. Rochester is 3-1-0-0 in its last four road games dating back to its 6-3 win at Utica. The road trip continues this weekend as the Amerks begin a three-game trek through the Atlantic Division with stops in Providence and Hartford before closing out the weekend with an afternoon tilt in Bridgeport.
*Second-year forward Evan Rodrigues has been Rochester’s top point-getter since the turn of the New Year, recording 11 points (3+8) in his last 12 games dating back to Dec. 17. He’s been held scoreless just three times over that stretch. The same stretch also saw Rodrigues compile a season-long five-game point streak, highlighted by a three-point effort (2+1) at Utica on Dec. 31. With 23 points on the season, Rodrigues is already within two goals and seven points of matching his output as a rookie in half as many games this season. He’s currently fifth among all Amerks skaters in scoring and has appeared in all but one game for Rochester, in addition to skating in a pair of contests with the Buffalo Sabres.
*Back with the Amerks following a seven-game stint with the Sabres that saw him score his first NHL goal, Justin Bailey picked up right where he left off with another two-point effort in Saturday’s win in Toronto. The second-year forward extended his goal-scoring streak to a career-best five games while also pushing his point streak to six straight, showing nine points (6+3) over that span. With goals in five straight games, he enters the week owning the longest active goal-scoring streak in the AHL. Only two other players have scored more goals in consecutive games than Bailey, Brendan Perlini (Tucson) and Ivan Barbashev (Chicago), both of whom had goals in six straight contests earlier this season.
*Goaltender Linus Ullmark, who was also reassigned to Rochester over the weekend along with Bailey, remains the AHL’s leader in saves (841), shots-against (926) and minutes played (1,687) while tied for fourth in the league with 15 wins. He has won four of his last five games and boasts a 7-3-0-0 record over his last 10 appearances while starting 25 of the last 32 games for Rochester.
