AHL Syracuse Crunch

Crunch Charge Past Hamilton

Published on January 19, 2009 under American Hockey League (AHL)
Syracuse Crunch News Release


Syracuse, NY (January 19, 2009) - The Syracuse Crunch defeated the Hamilton Bulldogs in a 2 p.m. matinee match-up today, 6-3, in front of 4,842 fans at the War Memorial at Oncneter.

After a physical affair on Saturday night against these same Bulldogs that saw the Crunch drop a 6-2 decision while taking a season-high 92 penalty minutes, Syracuse came out flying and scored the game's first goal 1:49 into the contest.

After gliding down the right side and gaining the offensive zone, Mike York sent a pretty pass over the Steve Kelly streaking down the middle. Kelly corralled the puck and zipped a wrister over the left shoulder of Marc Denis, making his first start with the Bulldogs since December 30 to give the Crunch a 1-0 lead.

The Crunch went up 2-0 at the 8:47 mark by taking advantage of a sloppy line change by Hamilton.

Dan Smith chipped the puck up to Kevin Harvey, who came in on a partial breakaway. Harvey's wrister beat Denis to the stick side to give Syracuse the two-goal advantage.

Hamilton, however pulled back to within a goal after being awarded a power play when The Crunch's Mike Blunden was given the extra two minutes for instigating after a skirmish that saw him given a five-minute major for fighting Hamilton's Ryan O'Byrne as well as a ten-minute misconduct after Derek MacKenzie got hit hard along the boards.

Ben Maxwell notched his third goal in the last two games against the Crunch when his shot from the bottom of the right circle on a sharp angle found its way through Dan LaCosta and into the back of the cage to make it 2-1.

The second period was all Syracuse, as they outshot Hamilton 14-4 and put up two more goals on the scoreboard.

The Crunch made it a 3-1 game at the 3:32 mark on the power play when Kelly recorded his second goal of the game.

Aaron Rome's point shot was deflected in front and popped out to the slot where Kelly found it and roofed it over the shoulder of Denis to give the Crunch back the two-tally edge.

Syracuse added another marker to stretch its lead to 4-1 with just over four and a half minutes left in the stanza.

John Vigilante made a slick move at the blue line to gain the zone and fed the puck over to Harvey at the top of the right circle. Harvey let a shot go that was redirected past Denis by Ryan Garlock, who was charging hard to the net on the play.

Hamilton pulled to within 4-3 when Yannick Weber and Mike Glumac tallied goals at the 4:44 and 6:41 marks of the third period, respectively.

The Crunch, however, showed some resilience when Aaron Rome's shot from the point took a fluky bounce and fluttered past Denis at the 11:59 mark to make it 5-3 in favor of Syracuse.

After an Andrey Plekhanov boarding infraction at 18:09, Hamilton pulled Denis to make it a 6-on-4 advantage.

The Crunch iced the game when Craig MacDonald found the puck along the left boards and sent it sailing about 150 feet into to the vacated cage to seal a 6-3 win.

LaCosta finished with 28 saves.

CRUNCHABLES: Kevin Harvey's assist on Ryan Garlock's second period goal was his first in the AHL and first as a member of the Crunch...The Crunch took a lead into the third period for the seventh time in 42 games this year...Steve Kelly tallied his second two-goal effort of the year tonight and now has five goals over his last three games...Kelly has seven points (5g, 2a), over his last six games...Mike Blunden's assist on Aaron Rome's third period goal was his first as a member of the Crunch...Dan LaCosta and Craig MacDonald both played in their first games back tonight after being assigned from Columbus...Crunch defenseman Jon Landry played in his first AHL game tonight.

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American Hockey League Stories from January 19, 2009


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