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AHL Syracuse Crunch

Crunch Exterminate Rats To Win Fourth Straight

February 3, 2010 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Syracuse Crunch News Release


Crunch Exterminate Rats to Win Fourth Straight

Albany, NY (February 3, 2010) - The Syracuse Crunch matched a season-high with three power play goals to win their fourth straight game and Kevin Lalande stopped 38 of 41 shots to vault his club past the Albany River Rats tonight by a 5-3 count at the Times Union Center.

Albany opened the scoring early after Mike Blunden was called for tripping at the 1:41 mark of the first period. Just 10 seconds into the power play, Jacob Micflikier found the rebound of a Jonathan Paiement wrister and swept the puck past Lalande from the bottom of the left circle for the 1-0 lead.

The Crunch answered back with nine and a half minutes to go in the first when Trevor Frischmon moved the puck to David Liffiton and his slapper from the right side was deflected by Alexandre Picard on his way to the net past Justin Peters to make it 1-1.

The score stayed that way until the Crunch notched a power play goal for the eighth straight game when Tomas Kana re-directed a pass from Dan Fritsche, found his own rebound and shuffled it past Peters to give Syracuse the 2-1 edge.

Albany answered back with just under six minutes left in the second stanza when Jerome Samson followed up on two straight kick saves and put the second rebound past the outstretched pad of Lalande to knot the contest at 2-2.

The game didn't stay tied this time for very long, as the Crunch re-took the lead just under two minutes later when Grant Clitsome slid a pass over to Dylan Reese positioned in the slot.

Reese one-timed the disk towards the goal mouth where it caromed off of Jordan LaVallee-Smotherman and into the back of the net to put the Crunch up 3-2.

The Crunch got into some penalty trouble at the tail end of the second by taking back-to-back-to infractions, but were able to kill off the full two minutes of a 5-on-3 and the rest of the 5-on-4 that carried over into the third frame.

Fritsche set up MacKenzie on a one-timer from the right circle on the power play nine minutes into the third to extend the Crunch lead to 4-2, and Mike Blunden's fourth of the season, again with the man-advantage, gave Syracuse the 5-2 lead with just under six minutes left.

Albany's Nicolas Blanchard added his ninth of the year on a re-direction with four minutes to go in regulation, but the Crunch held on for the 5-3 win.

CRUNCHABLES: Derek MacKenzie extended his point streak to a personal and team season-high nine games and now has 14 points (7g, 7a) over that span...Tomas Kana extended his point streak to four games...Kevin Lalande won his fourth game in a row...The Crunch have now won five of their last six road games.

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