Murphy, Matthias with Three Points in 6-5 Win

Shawn had a huge night tonight for the Amerks, and the team really won the game for their goaltender Mike Brodeur, who has shown signs that he is, in fact, human after all.

The first period was laden with action with Hamilton taking the lead only 1:17 in to the game. On a power play shortly before the midway point of the frame, Karl Stewart scored to tie things at 1. Three minutes later, Hamilton reclaimed the lead. But, Rochester's offense was alive tonight and they had another answer to that goal, and it came only two minutes later off the stick of Shawn Matthias. Not to be outdone in this early duel, Hamilton would score their third goal of the period with just over two minutes to play; but Rochester again fought hard and managed to pull a huge momentum swing with under twenty seconds to play in the period when Jason Garrison scored his third goal of the year (it was a power play goal and Cory Murphy picked up an assist) and his second point of the game.

Mike Brodeur faced 12 shots on the period and allowed 3 goals.

In the second, it was Shawn Matthias scoring again, this time on the power play, with another assist from Murphy. But more importantly, it was Rochester's first lead of the game. Late in the period, Murphy picked up a goal of his own, another power play point for the Amerks, and the period closed out at 5-3 Rochester.

Stefan Meyer made it 6-3 in the third and Shawn Matthias had the first assist, giving him three points on the night. That's extremely notable, because in 24 games leading up to tonight, Shawn had four points. Tonight, he showed them the kind of player that he's supposed to be.

It got tense with a pair of quick goals just past the halfway point of the third, but the Amerks held on and picked up a big 6-5 win.

Matthias was the first star with two goals and an assist, followed by Cory Murphy (one goal, two assists) and Jason Garrison (one goal, three assists).

Unfortunately for the Amerks, Murphy's conditioning stint is coming to an end and much like when Noah Welch was with the team, Rochester really benefited from their contributions. Murphy's five game stay with Rochester saw him quarterbacking the power play with a ton of poise. Despite being only 5'10", he was more than able to showcase some skill and picked up six points, two of which were goals

Cory was waived back in early October and cleared. Jacques Martin chose not to reassign Murphy, and instead he saw a handful of games with the Panthers before being injured. That's what led to justifying this conditioning stint. But Murphy, if Florida were actually to consider returning him to the Amerks, has gone well past the 30 day/10 game rule since clearing waivers and he would have to clear again in order to get reassigned. His performance with the Amerks might have a team a little more interested this time around, but it might also have earned him another shot with the Cats, and with all the questions looming about Jay Bouwmeester, I don't think they'd be too disappointed to see Murphy find the form he had in his first games with the team last year.