For those who aren't familiar, a refresher:
The 22-23 Amerks made a run to the conference finals, where they lost in 6 to a big, physical, defensive team in Hershey (Capitals farm team). Sidenote: Hershey won the Calder Cup, and are currently the favorite to win it again after a president's trophy-equivalent season in 23-24.
The Amerks' run was due to a couple of things:
1. Malcolm Subban was an average AHL goalie, and went on a crazy heater, with a .916 SV% through 14 games.
2. Lawrence Pilut scored an OT winner in game 5 (its a best of 5 series) vs Syracuse in their 1st playoff series, which catapulted the whole run.
3. Kulich and Rosen shined at times (Kulich specifically, had a HUGE impact), combining for 11 goals in the playoffs, but...
4. The proudction was mostly carried by AHL vets, not Sabre prospects. Michael Mersch and Mason Jobst, 2 AHL-only deals, were the top scorers. Lukas Rousek, Brett Murray, Linus Weissbach, and Sean Malone, along with D Ethan Prow and Pilut, rounded out the rest of the top 10 scorers. Minus Rousek, none are prospects anymore. Just NHL/AHL (mostly AHL) tweeners.
Conclusion: This was a run about a hot goalie, a team that found a complete game style around game 3 of the Syracuse series that they didn't show the ENTIRE regular season, and a veteran core of AHLers leading the way, not the prospects.
In 23-24, the roster is largely the same, with a few key differences:
-Subban is gone, Levi is in. You'd hope that's a big upgrade
-Pilut is gone, Ryan Johnson and Nikita Novikov are here now. Experience downgrade, upside upgrade.
-The forward core is basically the same, with Malone gone, Biro healthy this time (he missed the entire 22-23 run), and rookies Wahlberg and Neuchev here, and making an impact. We'll also see if Ostlund or Savoie play at all. Savoie did play 2 games in the 22-23 run, but had no chemistry with anyone on a new team, and Rochester rightly put back in a vet.
I wish Jost/Clague could've come to bolster the depth, but the Amerks still have a punchers chance to repeat last year. It'll depend on goaltending, if the vets can be productive again, and if the rookies can have an impact again.