Newcomers DeRoche, Sternschein, Brierley make immediate impacts for RoughRiders

CEDAR RAPIDS – Johnny DeRoche is from Boston, something that's obvious five to 10 seconds into a conversation with him.

When the newest Cedar Rapids RoughRider was asked about his reaction when Coach/General Manager Mark Carlson invited him to join the club a couple of weeks ago, his response was so stereotypical Beantown.

'I was wicked happy,” DeRoche said.

The RoughRiders have been wicked happy to have him.

The club goes into Friday night's game at Sioux Falls on a four-game win streak. They've won five of six.

It's not a coincidence this solid run of play has come after Carlson added defenseman Taylor Brierley and forwards DeRoche and Sam Sternschein to the roster.

'They have all helped us for sure,” Carlson said. 'All three guys can make plays, and they all have good hockey sense. They're learning to work. They have all been very strong additions to our team, 100 percent.”

Their additions were pretty much a necessity, to be honest.

DeRoche, 17, was an affiliate-roster player who was promoted to the main roster after forward Charlie Michalowski decided to leave and play for a junior team in Canada. The Quinnipiac commit was playing for the lower-level Boston Jr. Bruins.

Sternschein, 17, was acquired from the USHL's Tri-City Storm for fellow high-school forward Collin Rutherford in a change-of-scenery trade that has benefitted both players.

Brierley, 19, was brought in from the Minnesota Magicians of the North American Hockey League after third-year defenseman Logan Von Ruden unexpectedly decided to retire from hockey. He played his first RoughRiders game Nov. 14 at Madison despite never having even met his coach or teammates.

'It's been pretty crazy,” he said. 'I drove all over the Midwest my first day here. It was a Friday night after our (Magicians) game at Brookings, S.D. Coach called me into his room at our hotel there and was talking to Coach Carlson. They wanted me to meet them in Madison the next morning.

'So I called my dad and told him about it. He woke up at 4 in the morning and drove to Brookings (from his parents home in East Grand Forks, N.D.), which was about four hours. I packed up all my stuff, drove seven hours to Madison with him, played the game, drove back to Minneapolis and picked my stuff up, my gear, and then drove to Cedar Rapids on Sunday.”

Brierley said he attended Omaha's tryout camp last summer but never envisioned getting a shot to play in the USHL, especially this season.

'I was completely kind of blown away,” he said. 'I wasn't expecting anything. I was thinking I was going to be in the Magicians organization the rest of the year. It was an honor to get the call up.”

A puck-moving rearguard, he has three assists in six games for Cedar Rapids and a plus-minus rating of plus-two. Sternschein has two goals and four points in nine game with the Riders, after recording just one point (a goal) in eight games with Tri-City.

DeRoche has two goals and an assist in four games, with 11 shots on goal. That shows how little he has been intimidated by his new surroundings.

'The pace is so much faster, everyone works so hard, it's a lot higher skill. Everyone is competing hard every shift,” he said. 'They drafted me a couple of years ago, and think it was great that Coach Carlson kept me on the affiliate list a second year. I felt like I really owed it to him to come up here and work hard for him.

'I was going to work hard either way. I was going to work my ass off until I got the chance to play here and then continue to work hard with that chance.”

The RoughRiders (12-6-1, 25 standings points) host Green Bay on Saturday night at 7:05. Those clubs go into the weekend in a first-place tie in the United States Hockey League's Eastern Conference.

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