Syracuse, NY - The Syracuse Crunch needed a shootout for the third time in the last four home games, but defeated the Houston Aeros tonight by a 4-3 count in front of 4,821 fans at the War Memorial at Oncneter.Houston tallied the game's first goal just over nine minutes into the opening frame when Duncan Milroy swept the puck to the front of the net where Carson McMillan found it through a crowd of players and poked it past Kevin Lalande for his first professional goal.
Houston's lead did not last long, as the Crunch broke and 0-for-9 skid on the power play by scoring with the man-advantage at the 12:32 mark.
Mathieu Roy slid the puck over to Nick Holden at the right point. Holden hesitated for a split second, then fired a shot on net. Using his 6-foot, 5-inch frame, Tom Sestito parked himself in front of the net and re-directed Holden's shot past rookie Anton Khudobin to knot the score at 1-1.
Houston out-shot the Crunch by a 10-7 margin in the first period.
The Crunch took the lead seven minutes into second stanza on Jordan LaVallee-Smotherman's second goal of the year.
Coming out of his own end, David Liffiton made a hard cross-ice pass that was tipped by Trevor Frischmon on to the stick of LaVallee-Smotherman. The Corvallis, Oregon native pulled up, skated in a few strides and ripped a wrister past Khudobin from the right wing to give Syracuse the 2-1 edge.
Houston would tie the game before the first 40 minutes was through when Jean-Michel Daoust took a pass in his own zone from Chad Rau, snuck behind the Crunch defense and cut to the net from the right goal line extended. Daoust deked to his backhand and beat Lalande over the shoulder to make it a 2-2 contest with three and a half minutes to go in the frame.
The Aeros kept their momentum going and took back the lead seven minutes into the third period on the power play when Jon Mirasty was called for delay of game after putting the puck up into stands from his own end.
Petr Kalus went to the front of the cage and shoveled in a Nathan Smith pass from behind the net that snuck by Lalande to give Houston a 3-2 edge.
The Crunch battled back and tied the game once again about six and a half minutes later.
Jared Aulin won the face-off back to Liffiton at the left point from the left circle in the offensive zone. Liffiton threw what looked like a harmless wrist shot on goal that floated past Khudobin on the glove side to make it 3-3.
Both teams battled for the winning goal during the rest of regulation and through overtime, but neither could clinch the contest. Houston had a golden opportunity to ice the game when Pascal Pelletier was called for goaltender interference, but the Crunch killed off the penalty in the final 1:17 of overtime, forcing a shootout.
Newly-acquired Bates Battaglia scored in the second round on a shot through Khudobin's five-hole, as did Aulin in the fifth round, sealing the victory for Syracuse.
Lalande stopped 21 of 24 shots in regulation and was a perfect four-for-four in the tiebreaker.
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