By now, it's quite apparent that the Rochester Americans are locked into a tightly-contested playoff race.
And we can talk about the metrics and the standings all we want, but I'm going to save that for another time and instead focus on the players that I think need to play a role in leading Rochester's playoff chase.
Can Jack Rathbone replicate the form he showed during his first season with Rochester?
During his first season with the Americans, Jack Rathbone recorded a total of 23 points (six goals and 17 assists) through 63 games played.
So far this season, Rathbone is on a similar point-scoring pace, having scored 17 points (five goals and 12 assists) through 46 games played. That has him tied with Ryan Johnson for 12th in the team's point-scoring charts and just a point back of Nikita Novikov.
With the above in mind, it's not that he's struggling per se. It's more a question of whether he can contribute at a similar pace to players like Trevor Kuntar, who has scored 28 points in 55 games so far this season. We've seen Rathbone's full potential before; back in the 2021-22 season, his point-per-game scoring helped push the Abbotsford Canucks to 84 points and a preliminary round appearance.
Though he is on pace to improve on his statistics from the 2024-25 season, an Amerks playoff push might rely on players like Rathbone increasing their point-scoring output ever so slightly.
Despite improving on last year's performance, Carson Meyer still has some work to do.
Like with Rathbone, Carson Meyer is putting together a good campaign but it's one that needs to be reinforced throughout this home stretch of the season.
Over the course of his 172 games with the Cleveland Monsters, Meyer recorded a total of 110 points, consisting of 56 goals and 54 assists. Though the goalscoring was never really there until his final season with the Monsters, Meyer did record two consecutive 15+ assist seasons to close out his time in Cleveland.
Despite seeing limited playing time with the San Diego Gulls due to injury, Meyer was able to record 20 points (nine goals and 11 assists) through 29 games played during the 2024-25.
So far this season, Meyer has 25 points (11 goals and 14 assists) through 40 games played. As a result, Meyer not only finds himself four points clear of his 2024-25 tally, but also on a trajectory that could see him post career highs in assists and potentially goals as well. That said, it's worth noting that the point-per-game pace he's on this season (.625 points per game) is way lower than what it was last year (.724 points per game).
Meyer should set a new career-best in assists with relative ease, but the goal-scoring is the elephant in the room here. The Amerks are already at mid-table when it comes to goal-scoring (they rank 19th in the league in goals for), and they'll need to find way more than the 19th-most amount of goals if they are to hold onto one of the five playoff spots that are available in their division. That starts with players like Meyer, who still have plenty of time to improve on their current goal-scoring metrics.
A goal-scoring haul similar to Meyer's 2021-22 output of 16 goals is doable and would also serve as a reasonable target for him to hit as Rochester looks to qualify for their seventh-straight playoff appearance (not considering the cancellations of 2019-20 and 2020-21).