After an outstanding season with the WHL’s Winnipeg Ice, the Buffalo Sabres first of three first-round picks in 2022 is into the mix with Rochester in the AHL Playoffs
ROCHESTER — Full admission up front: Today’s piece was to be a shift-by-shift analysis of Matthew Savoie’s first game in Rochester and second as a Rochester Americans forward. After the Americans were shutout in Savoie’s AHL debut in Game 2 in Hershey, getting a full look at him live and in person seemed like a great idea.
And did it ever seem like the perfect time to do so given he skated on the right wing with Jiri Kulich on the left and Lukas Rousek up the middle. What could be better!
Alas…the game did not allow for such fun.
The pace was choppy, there were haphazard penalties called which broke up how lines were used early on, and for 30 minutes of action the Bears had their way hammering the Americans physically and stymieing all of their efforts to gain the zone with the puck on their stick.
It’s playoff hockey in the most obvious of ways and then some.
But Savoie’s arrival into Rochester after a great season with the Winnipeg Ice in the Western Hockey League is exciting. He was the Buffalo Sabres’ first of three first-round picks in the 2022 NHL Draft (ninth overall) after he posted 35 goals and 90 points for the Ice in 65 games last season. He followed that up with 38 goals and 95 points in 62 games this season before joining the Americans. Never mind that he’s listed at 5-foot-9, 179-pounds, he can play.
Having Savoie joining the other supremely talented prospects on the Americans’ roster like Kulich, Rousek, and Isak Rosén as well as a team that’s played superb hockey the past couple months gives fans in Rochester and Buffalo reason to tune in or show up at Blue Cross Arena to get an idea of what the future may have in store for the organization.
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This isn’t a post meant to rave about Savoie’s play. These are his first two professional games and they’re worthy of note because of who he is and when he was taken in the draft. One of his fellow Sabres first-rounders has been in Rochester all season and has been a breakout star for them at the age of 18 (now 19). The other first-rounder, Noah Östlund, was in Rochester with the team briefly recently but went back to Sweden. Given he’s injured and couldn’t skate or practice with the team, it’s understandable. There’s also question whether or not Östlund will play in Rochester next season or not.
But this is also about how it’s really freakin’ difficult to get thrown into the hottest of fires at the most stressful time of the season. That’s what playoffs are and for as talented as Savoie is, it’s rough to hop into a lineup that’s been virtually together all season.
What’s good about the group in Rochester is they look out for each other and they’re helpful and welcoming to everyone that’s part of the team. I cannot express enough how vital that kind of atmosphere is in development situations like the AHL and what the Sabres organization has in Rochester right now is as good as they’ve had it there in ages. It’s because of that the organization has no qualms whatsoever about having very young players there.
Working in Savoie in the middle of the Calder Cup Semifinals is a hell of a thing and what we’ve seen in his first couple games are a player who can generate chances suddenly. One of his first shifts in Game 2 saw him very nearly help get Rochester on the board but Bears goalie Hunter Shepard got back to normal that game and shut Rochester out.
Game 3 offered a home game and a chance for redemption for the Americans but that wasn’t in the cards. Rochester played a rough first 20 minutes of the game, allowed a goal against, and generally looked all out of sorts. Coaches and players will always say how they want to play “their game” and make the opponent uncomfortable in trying to keep up with it. That’s something Rochester did not do in the opening period. They were immediately frustrated by Hershey picking up where they left off in Game 2 and appeared to counter that by trying to out-do the Bears at their own style of play.
The Americans are not built that way and that kind of start made it so the line of Kulich-Rousek-Savoie was not going to have an easy night. They did not and coach Seth Appert made it clear he did not like the way that trio played together. It was a gamble running them together with limited practice time, but if Hershey played similar to how they did in Game 1, those guys would’ve feasted in front of the sold-out crowd at home. I get it. It just didn’t work.
Late in the second period/early in the third Rousek moved to a different line and Tyson Kozak centered Kulich and Savoie, and it worked well with the Bears also looking to just lock down the game. If they want to work the same forwards into Game 4, how the lines ended in Game 3 makes sense for a starting point for Monday.
Savoie had one shot attempt in the first period, a one-timer that went awry, but his offensive creativity was more apparent in the third when he twice attempted a quick give-and-go break-in to the attack zone. He received a pass from Kulich and tried two different times to get it right back to him. Hershey was in good position defensively each time and was able to break it up, but that kind of play shows the kind of offensive smarts you want to see.
Other situations, a one-on-one in the neutral zone in which the tone of the play seemed to say, “I know I am faster than this guy and I can get by him.” But pro hockey doesn’t work that way. He may be faster and more skilled than that player, but the Bears defender had position and reach on him and was able to use those to his advantage. Those kinds of situations change with experience and when he learns the ways to exploit their weaknesses, it’s a different game then. But that takes time with more games played. For now, simplicity is the name of the game and using the natural gifts to gain an edge.
These games, for however many Savoie plays and for however much longer Rochester is in the postseason, are but a taste. We’ve seen his speed, it’s good. We’ve seen him be tenacious on the forecheck, that’s also good. We’ve seen him get directions from teammates on the ice during play where he should be in the defensive zone, that’s sort of expected. We’ve seen him try some things out to see if he can do them at this level and that’s a good idea. Finding out what you can and can’t do and what you should and shouldn’t do are necessary.
This is all a long-winded way of saying whatever he does now is worth watching to get an idea of what kind of player he can be. His talent is too good to just have him fart around in practices and morning skates and goals will be at an absolute premium against Hershey. Yes, they scored a pile in Game 1 but that’s an outlier. What’s there for Savoie is exciting and considering it’ll be an uphill battle for him to not go back to junior hockey next season (it’s NHL or WHL, no possibility of playing AHL until after his WHL season is over because of age).
It’s the most awkward time of season to get worked into a lineup and get a taste of what it’s like, but he’s getting it against one of the best teams in the league at the time of year when nothing is easy. It’s the exact kind of test you want a potential future star to face up to this early in his career.