Rochester Wins, Out of Last Place

Tyler Plante stopped 33 of 34 Iowa shots last night and the Amerks scored four goals to put the Iowa Stars down, 4-1.

More importantly for Rochester, the two points have pushed them ahead of the Springfield Falcons (Edmonton's affiliate) and out of last place in the league - a position they kept warm from the first day of the season.

Shawn Matthias scored the opening goal on a power play in the first period, and the game held at 1-0 until Iowa tied it early in the third period.

Not quite halfway through the final frame, Randall Gelech put Rochester on top. Soon after, center Drew Larman picked up a shorthanded goal and late in the third, Karl Stewart scored on an empty net.

Rochester has improved to 18-29-0-4, and while the 40 points they have is only one ahead of Springfield, there are six teams with totals in the '40s. Granted, not all are in the same conference (three are).

It's been a slow, but noticeable improvement by a team that had three wins when December started (3-18-0-2). Mike Brodeur provided the goaltending boost, and with it, the team actually started to play with more confidence and it's allowed many of the players to take individual strides in their game - you look at Keaton Ellerby and he's improved dramatically since the season started.

The past four games for Plante though, have been refreshing. The young goaltender was 0-5 with a GAA over 5 and a save percentage of .850%, but in his four starts since Brodeur's injury and Beckford-Tseu's awful performance in the same game, Plante has gone 2-2, stopping 119 of 126 (.944%) and posting a goals-against-average of 1.75. Combined with his previous record, his win/loss is still a disappointing 2-7, but his GAA has dropped considerably, from 5.10 to 3.41 -- and his save percentage has climbed from .850% to .896%.