Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Michael Mersch went home this summer to suburban Chicago with some hard thinking ahead of him.
He had wrapped up another pro season. Certainly he could still play. Nobody doubted that, not after he supplied 38 points (15 goals, 23 assists) in 66 games for the Rochester Americans. A classic power forward at 6-foot-2 and 223 pounds, he still had plenty of durability to him. His big-brother approach and low-key personality had earned him the Rochester captaincy for the past three seasons during a period in which the parent Buffalo Sabres had relied on the Amerks to bring along several high-end prospects. They tasked Mersch to head up the leadership group that would help then-teenage first-round picks like Jack Quinn and Isak Rosen to adapt to the AHL. Plenty more like Jiri Kulich have followed as the Sabres attempt to build a long-term core takes root in Rochester.
But this summer came down to making some major life decisions, choices that impact far more than him. His contract in Rochester had expired. What would be next?
Mersch and his wife, Jenna, have two young sons. His family isn’t getting any younger, and time is not slowing down any. His brother, Dominick, just took a job working in downtown Chicago. Life beyond hockey continued its procession. The very nature of playing one level removed from the NHL means that a player’s career takes on a dominant role for a hockey family. Those families move around. Jobs are put on hold. Trades can happen. Grandparents are back home, wherever home might be.
“Over the summer we were home as a family,” Mersch explained, “and just seeing the relationships that my kids had with their aunts and uncles or cousins, their grandparents, their friends here in the area…they just had so much going for them. I felt like as time went on, it felt selfish of me to pack the bags and move everybody out again.”
Framed like that, the decision became quite clear for Mersch. He put his family first and announced his retirement this week.
It was time.
Retirement is never going to be easy, but Mersch, who turned 32 on Wednesday, does leave the ice having crossed off several of the major items on any hockey player’s to-do list. He played 17 games in the NHL, all with the Los Angeles Kings, the team that made him a fourth-round draft pick. He won a Calder Cup as a rookie with the Manchester Monarchs in 2015. That springtime championship charge went so well, in fact, that Mersch ended up tying for the league in scoring with 22 points (13 goals, nine assists) in 18 playoff games. He was able to play for some of the AHL’s most memorable coaches of the past decade – Mike Stothers in Manchester and Ontario; Derek Laxdal and Neil Graham in Texas; and Seth Appert in Rochester.
It was in Rochester that Appert and Mersch connected. The pandemic had upended the market for pro hockey players just as it had disrupted so much else in the world. It had also pushed the start of the 2020-21 AHL season to February. Mersch did not have a contract even coming off a solid two seasons with Texas. Everything that year and that season started – and remained – in flux across hockey.
But the Amerks had an offer. It came one day after the AHL season had started, but it was a tryout offer. Really, nobody could make any promises that season. Hockey and the AHL had to figure out and adjust to ever-changing conditions just as the rest of society did.
Mersch took the offer.
“It wasn’t much of a decision,” Mersch quipped. “It was my only option. I was right on the cusp (of retirement).”
He sped off to Rochester. The move quickly paid off for both parties. Appert was in his first season in pro hockey that year, a career step that is challenging for any coach let alone one trying to step through that season. Appert leaned heavily on Mersch on and off the ice. Mersch became a fixture in the Rochester lineup, someone for Appert to rely on amid external circumstances that offered little to no predictability.
“It all just kind of meshed well together at the right time,” Mersch said of the decision that eventually led to four seasons in Rochester. “I took a lot of pride in it. I bought into what I needed to do to stay playing because I found out pretty quickly it’s not guaranteed.”
Mersch secured a new two-year deal with the Amerks that summer. With Mersch as captain, Rochester found the success that its fans had long sought. Buffalo management came away happy too as Sabres prospects had a chance to experience the Calder Cup Playoffs. The team ended up going to the 2023 Eastern Conference Finals, and Mersch tied for the team playoff scoring lead with 13 points (six goals, seven assists) in 14 games.
In all, 220 of Mersch’s 597 AHL regular-season games came with Rochester. He finished his AHL career with 401 points (188 goals, 213 assists).
Mersch looks at that time in Rochester differently than he may have viewed earlier stages of his career. By signing an AHL deal, he admits that some of the pressure of fighting for NHL recalls came off him. He was going to be in Rochester, and that is where he could station his focus.
“I felt like anything from that point on was a bonus,” Mersch said. “I would say it gave me a little closure. I love it in Rochester. The four years there were incredible. Those four years were probably some of the most fun hockey I’ve had.”
A lot will look different in Rochester this fall. Appert now works in Buffalo, where he is a Sabres assistant coach. Free agency shook up the Rochester roster. Several familiar names departed while others have come aboard. It will be different for Mersch, too. He is examining what might be out there, career-wise, though he says that he would like to stay in hockey. He does plan to make a return trip to Rochester at some point.
Said Mersch, “[I still] go through times where I feel like I’m a hockey player. I’ll probably always identify as a hockey player even though I’m not playing professionally anymore.”
But for now he can be a full-time husband and dad. This summer provided a real taste of what might be, and he liked it.
“We’ve created a lot of memories.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
