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AHL Syracuse Crunch

Crunch KO Adirondack in Home Opener

October 10, 2009 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Syracuse Crunch News Release


Syracuse, NY - With special guest, The Karate Kid star Ralph Macchio in attendance, the Crunch delivered their own version of a crane kick to Adirondack tonight, scoring six unanswered goals in a 6-1 win over the Phantoms in front of a sellout crowd of 6,237 fans at the War Memorial at Oncenter.

A boisterous and excited crowd was quickly quieted when Adirondack's Lukas Kaspar put the road team up 1-0 just 1-minute, 34 seconds into the game. Jonathon Kalinski got Kaspar the puck behind the net and his wraparound attempt found daylight through the pads of Kevin Lalande.

Just over two minutes later, in an effort to spark his team, David Liffiton battled Adirondack's Matt Clackson. The Crunch however, could not tally in the first frame despite out-shooting the Phantoms by an 8-5 margin.

With a lackluster first period, the Crunch came out seemingly on a mission in the second stanza and tied the game 1-minute and 25 seconds in on a pretty passing play.

Crunch captain Derek MacKenzie skated the puck into the offensive zone and made a drop pass for a trailing Alexandre Picard. Picard quickly moved the disk to Pascal Pelletier camped out in the right face-off circle who wired a shot to the top right corner over the shoulder of Johan Backlund to make it 1-1.

Syracuse wasted no time taking the lead by scoring again just 13 seconds later when Stefan Legein tapped in a cross-ice feed at the top of the crease from Kevin Harvey to give the Crunch a 2-1 advantage.

The scoring chances kept coming as the Crunch kept pouring it on and tallied again at the 6:47 mark of the second.

Dylan Reese took a feed from Dan Fritsche, skated in down the left side, pulled up and circled around looking for a trailer. He found one in Tom Sestito and floated a pass to the Rome, NY native that he was able to get a stick on and punch it by Backlund for the 3-1 Crunch lead.

Syracuse scored its season-high fourth goal of the period with just under seven minutes to play in the frame on a highlight reel tally from Jared Aulin. Tom Sestito chipped the puck up to Aulin, who came in with speed and backed in the defense.

Aulin danced to the net, stick-handled around a defender, pulled the puck back to himself and sniped a shot to the top right corner to make it 4-1.

It was more of the same for Syracuse in the third period when the Crunch went up 5-1 on a power play tally from MacKenzie when he took a cross-ice feed from Pelletier and buried it past Backlund.

Dan Fritsche added another tally, his first since returning to the Crunch, with a minute and a half remaining to extend Syracuse's lead to 6-1.

After giving up the early tally, Lalande shut the door the rest of the way for the Crunch and ended up with 25 saves on the night.

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American Hockey League Stories from October 10, 2009


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