Kevin Oklobzija

ROC

The Calder Cup playoffs have once again come and gone for the Rochester Americans.

They’ll be going home while three more rounds of competition still must be played before the Cup is hoisted.

In sports, teams are judged by success: wins and losses, championship banners and champagne showers.

Feel free to maybe spray some carbonated generic spring water if you’d like, but that would be about the extent of any toast.

The Amerks lost more than they won (37 victories and 39 losses, although they did earn a point in 11 of the defeats by reaching overtime) and were ousted from the playoffs in the first round for the third consecutive spring.

Being among the 16 teams to earn a playoff berth in the 30-team American Hockey League is akin to receiving your high school diploma — not graduating magna cum laude. Thus, there’s no way the Amerks can claim that this was a successful season.

But it was hardly a waste.

After all, from the standpoint of ownership — the Buffalo Sabres — there was plenty to like:

• The young defensemen grew a great deal, especially Rasmus Ristolainen, Mark Pysyk and Chad Ruhwedel.

• The abilities and/or potential of rookie right winger Joel Armia and rookie center Tim Schaller were reaffirmed.

• This group learned how to persevere. There were times when half the real team was injured or on recall, yet they managed to win. There were times when they were down to two AHL defensemen, and they survived. They endured a nine-game losing streak that seemingly ended their playoff hopes in late March, but they bulled their way out of the junkyard and climbed from 11th to seventh in the conference with a 7-1-1 finishing kick.

“Every time our back was against the wall, our team competed hard,” coach Chadd Cassidy said.

Here are some of the most important things we learned this season:

• Ristolainen is going to be a star. He’s big, he knows it, he’s very willing to play with an edge, and he has the perfect temperament to deal with what the game throws at him. Throw in his skill set and, voila: the Sabres’ next 26-minute-a-game defenseman.

• Center Phil Varone isn’t just a scorer. He showed he could kill penalties and win faceoffs last year and continued to do so this year. But he emerged as a leader, and his competitive desire was very evident. “There was a lot more leadership from Phil in the locker room and on the bench,” Cassidy said. “It’s been interesting watching him grow.”

Varone was asked following Sunday’s 4-2 season-ending loss in Game 5 at Chicago whether the end result was any different than getting swept the previous two years. “You can’t sugar-coat it,” he said. “We still lost.”

• Goalie Andrey Makarov can play. That’s the one benefit to come from all the injuries suffered by the Sabres, or by players who were with the Sabres. If Jhonas Enroth and Michal Neuvirth hadn’t been injured, the organization still wouldn’t know what to think of Makarov.

But he was promoted from ECHL Fort Wayne in mid-March and became the Amerks’ go-to goalie. He was the backbone to their April surge and was stingy to the very end in the playoff series with the Wolves.

“He wasn’t going to get a chance in the American Hockey League if everything went according to script,” Cassidy said. “Obviously he made a name for himself.”

• Matt Hackett doesn’t appear to be the long-term answer in Buffalo. Plain and simple, he wasn’t good with the Amerks on very many nights. He had a 13-17-2-2 record, 3.07 goals-against average and .899 save percentage. Nathan Lieuwen, behind the same lineup, went 17-11-0-2 with a 2.34 GAA and .922 save percentage. Those are major differences.

Now, goalies can have bad seasons and then rebound. See Drew MacIntyre. But there’s no question Hackett’s stock dropped, and now he’ll enter the 2014-15 season coming off significant knee surgery.

• Schaller could end up being a great find. He was signed out of Providence College last spring with the belief that he could mature into a solid checking forward. While it took more than three months for the real Tim Schaller to emerge, he was one of the Amerks’ most effective players over the final two months as the center with wingers Brayden Irwin and Colton Gillies.

“You really noticed his skating down the stretch,” Cassidy said. “If that line wasn’t our best every night, it was one of the most effective.”

• Sometimes that key veteran signing in the summer turns out to be not so good: For instance, Mike Zigomanis didn’t meet expectations, all because of injuries. When he played, he was pretty effective (12 goals, 17 assists, 29 points in 50 games). But at crunch time, when the Amerks really needed his playoff experience and smarts, his body failed him. He played just two of the final 11 games and missed the entire playoff series because of a lower-body ailment.

KEVINO@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter/com/@kevinoDandC