By Warren Kozireski —
Devon Levi became just the third Rochester goaltender to register back-to-back playoff shutouts as he led the Amerks to 4-0 victory at Syracuse Thursday night to finish off a three-games-to none sweep in their North Division semi-final series.
Levi made 30 saves to join Bobby Perreault (1957) and Mika Noronen (2000-two times) with consecutive postseason shutouts.
“For us to be able to pull off the sweep is pretty incredible; it’s just cool that we got the outcome that we wanted with that complete buy-in,” Levi said.
Mason Jobst broke open the scoreless tie during a four-on-four as he hopped off the bench on a line change, gathering up a loose puck at center ice and scored on the breakaway at 15:51 of the first.
The Amerks broke the game open in the third period as defenseman Kale Clague scored his third goal of the series under the crossbar at 1:45 with assists from Konsta Helenius and Tyson Kozak.
Six minutes later Jobst redirected a pass from Zach Metsa for an insurance tally and, after Syracuse was held off the scoreboard for over four minutes with their goaltender pulled for the extra attacker, Brendan Warren secured the victory with an empty-net goal at 18:42.
“If you would have told me at the start of the series that we would out-number them in net-front goals; guys were incredible, the sacrifice, the effort, awesome,” Rochester head coach Michael Leone said.
The Amerks tied the AHL record for fewest goals allowed in a three-game playoff series (2) with Cleveland (1939) and Pittsburgh (1951).
Rochester now awaits the winner of the Cleveland vs Laval division semi-final series which stands 1-0 Rocket after their win Wednesday. Games two and three and Friday and Saturday. The North Division final is also a best-of-five series.
