Albany, NY (November 25, 2009) - The Syracuse Crunch couldn't dig itself out of three two-goal deficits as they were doubled up by the Albany River Rats on Thanksgiving Eve tonight, 4-2, in front of 4,132 fans at the Times Union Center.Syracuse fell behind early as Crunch killer and River Rats leading scorer Jerome Samson gave Albany the early 1-0 lead on the power play five and a half minutes into the opening period when he took a feed from Brett Carson on the left side and one-timed a slapper from the off-wing that beat Kevin Lalande. The goal was Samson's eighth of the season and third against the Crunch this year.
Albany scored again to make it 2-0 just over seven minutes later when Matthew Pistilli's centering feed from behind the net deflected off a Crunch defenseman and fluttered past Lalande at the 12:38 mark.
The Crunch got one back and cut its deficit to 2-1 with less than two minutes remaining in the first frame.
Pascal Pelletier corralled the puck on the far side boards just behind the red line. He rifled a pass to a streaking Bates Battaglia, who had a step on the Albany defenseman. Battaglia deked to his forehand and stuffed home a shot past Mike Murphy for his first goal and point as a member of the Crunch.
Chris Terry gave Albany back its two-goal lead when he raced into the offensive zone and re-directed a Rob Hennigar centering feed past Lalnde to make it 3-1 at the 3:43 mark of the third frame.
The Crunch answered just over 11 minutes later when Alexandre Picard and Maksim Mayorov broke in on a 2-on-1. Picard gathered the disk, drew the attention to him on the left side and slid a pass over to Mayorov, who cashed in on the wide-open net to make it a one-goal game once again at 3-2.
Although they out-shot the Rats 11-8 in the frame, the Crunch could not get the tying goal and fell behind by two tallies once again when Jamie McBain's slapper from the point found its way past Lalande with just 46 seconds to go in the period.
Murphy was solid in net for Albany, stopping all 11 third-period bids and turning aside 30 of 32 Crunch shots on the night.
CRUNCHABLES: Defenseman David Liffiton appeared in his 200th AHL game tonight...The Crunch dropped to 1-9-1-1 in 12 road games this season...Mayorov scored his second goal in as many games after scoring only twice in his first 18 contests...The Crunch have been outscored 36-11 in the second and third periods combined on the road this season.
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