The Buffalo Sabres made a number of firings in back June as part of the house cleaning after the firing of general manager Jason Botterill. As part of the rounds of firings, Rochester Americans head coach Chris Taylor lost his job, as well as his entire coaching staff.
New Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams has reportedly found a replacement for Taylor in Rochester with the hiring of former head coach at the United States National Team Development Program, Seth Appert.
More breaking #Sabres news: Seth Appert, formerly of the USA Hockey National Development Program, has been hired as head coach of the Rochester Americans.
Details at the link below, including two other candidates:https://t.co/bOr9ChPOKs
— Lance Lysowski (@LLysowski) August 14, 2020
Appert has spent the last two seasons coaching both the Under-17 Team and the Under-18 Team at the USNTDP. In that time, the Under-18 team won the Five Nations Cup and finished first in the USHL regular season in the 2018-19 season.
Appert also coached RPI, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, from 2006 to 2017. In that time, he had a record of 152–221–48, only making the NCAA tournament once.
Over the course of two decades in coaching, Appert has helped develop 23 players that went on to make the NHL, including former Sabres defenseman Erik Burgdoerfer, goalie Jason Kasdorf, and forward Jerry D’Amigo.
Appert will have big shoes to fill in Taylor, who had the Amerks in position to make the playoffs for the third year in a row before the 2019-20 season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
An announcement of the hire is expected to come from the Sabres some time next week.
Lysowski also reports that former NHL forward Alex Tanguay, now an assistant coach with the Iowa Wild of the AHL, was a candidate for the Amerks’ opening.
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