AHL Syracuse Crunch

Crunch Exterminate Rats

January 16, 2009 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Syracuse Crunch News Release


Syracuse, NY (January 16, 2008) - Another third period comeback helped the Syracuse Crunch to a 2-1 win over the Albany River Rats tonight in front of 5,412 fans at the War Memorial at Oncenter.

Playing their first home game of 2009, the Crunch came out looking to improve its record at the War Memorial at Oncenter after going 1-4-0-0 there in their last five games after starting the year 7-0-0-0 on home ice.

After 20 minutes of play, the game was scoreless as Albany held a 10-7 shots advantage.

Albany notched the game's first marker just 3:09 into the second stanza and 19 seconds into its first power play of the game with the Crunch's Kevin Harvey in the box for hooking.

Michael Ryan snuck in the back door and slammed the puck past Sebastian Dahm after taking a perfect cross-ice feed from Nick Dodge to give the River Rats a 1-0 lead.

That was the only goal of the frame as the Crunch outshot Albany by a 17-9 count in the second.

The Crunch went on a 5-on-3 advantage when Mark Flood and Jonathan Paiement were called for holding and slashing 1:06 apart early in the third period.

Syracuse took advantage when Mike York sent the puck out to Aaron Rome at the point who quickly slid the disk to the left side for a waiting Derek MacKenzie.

MacKenzie labeled a shot to the top right corner over the glove of Justin Peters to tie the game at 1-1 at the 5:19 mark.

As they have done six previous times this year, the Crunch picked up a win when trailing after two periods when Maksim Mayorov tallied his eighth of the season.

On a fluky play, Mayorov threw the puck on goal from the bottom of the left circle almost along the goal line. The puck hit the right post, off the left post, off Peters' skate and trickled over the goal line to give the Crunch a 2-1 lead with just 4:33 remaining.

CRUNCHABLES: Maksim Mayorov has four points (3g, 1a) over his last four games...Stefan Legein played in his first professional game and first contest as a member of the Crunch tonight...Mike Blunden skated in his first game as a member of the Crunch tonight...Syracuse's Grant Clitsome and Albany's Nick Dodge played against each other tonight after both of them were members of the Clarkson Golden Knights the past four seasons.

Check out the Syracuse Crunch Statistics



American Hockey League Stories from January 16, 2009


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