AHL Syracuse Crunch

Crunch Pick Up a Point in Bingo

December 19, 2008 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Syracuse Crunch News Release


Binghamton, NY (December 19, 2008) - The Syracuse Crunch rallied to tie the game, but were defeated in a shootout by the Binghamton Senators tonight, 3-2 in front of 3,642 fans at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena.

The Crunch's stretch of facing Binghamton three times over their next five games did not get off on the right foot, as the B-Sens tallied the game's first goal 7:38 into the first frame.

Kaspars Daugavins positioned himself in front of the net, took a feed from Ryan Shannon from behind the goal line and buried it past Crunch starter Dan LaCosta to give Binghamton a 1-0 lead. Despite outshooting the Senators 13-8 in the first, the score stayed that way after 20 minutes of play.

The Crunch kept their composure and tied the game at 1-1 2:42 into the second stanza. Newly acquired Mike Sgroi led a rush down the right side and threw a backhand pass towards the front of the net that banked in off of Binghamton starter Brian Elliott to knot the score.

The Crunch fell behind again at the 10:20 mark of the second on a strange play. Binghamton dumped the puck into the right corner to the left of LaCosta and it took an odd bounce off the boards and popped out to the middle.

Crunch defenseman Andrey Plekhanov overskated the disk as it came right to the stick of Danny Bois, who beat LaCosta to the glove side for a 2-1 lead.

Syracuse, however, did not let that phase them and scored just 1:45 later when Adam Pineault took pass from Nick Holden at center ice and built up a head of steam.

Pineault split the Binghamton defense, skated in and chipped a perfect backhand shot over the shoulder of Elliott for his third of the season to tie the game at 2-2.

Neither team was able to scratch out a goal in a hard-fought third period and overtime and the game remained deadlocked after 65 minutes of action.

Josh Hennessy and Denis Hamel picked up markers in the shootout and Adam Pineault had the only Crunch goal in the tiebreaker.

LaCosta finished with 33 saves while his counterpart Elliott turned aside 30 Crunch bids.

CRUNCHABLES: Adam Pineault's goal tonight was his first in 14 games...Mike Sgroi made his season debut in his second go-around with the Crunch tonight...Sgroi skated in 16 games for Syracuse during the 2005-06 season...Nick Holden recorded his fist professional point with an assist on Adam Pineault's second period goal...The Crunch gave up a shorthanded goal for the second consecutive game tonight.

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American Hockey League Stories from December 19, 2008


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