AHL Syracuse Crunch

Crunch Skid Hits Four

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


Syracuse, NY - Tomas Kana's second goal in as many games and Bates Battaglia's third tally in four contests was not enough for the Crunch, as they fell by a 5-2 count to the Albany River Rats tonight at the War Memorial at Oncenter, extending their season-high losing streak to four games.

Syracuse continued its trend of falling behind early by going down 2-0 within the first 5:07 of the game.

Albany's Brad Herauf notched his first goal of the season when he punched home a centering feed from Matthew Pistilli at the top of the crease to put the River Rats up 1-0 just under three minutes in.

Jacob Micflikier put Albany up 2-0 when he tallied his fifth of the season by beating Kevin Lalande just over two minutes later.

The first period saw a total of 30 shots, with Albany holding the edge at 16-14.

The Rats struck again six and a half minutes into the second stanza, this time on the power play, when Stefan Chaput's turnaround blast from the right point found its way through traffic and into the back of the net for a 3-0 Albany lead.

The Crunch finally got on the board just one minute later when Jared Aulin made a heads up play by finding Kana along the right goal line extended, and the Ostrava, Czech Republic native stuffed in the feed to cut it to 3-1.

Much like last night after falling behind early, the Crunch clawed their way back into the game when Batttaglia flew in from the right side and slammed home the rebound of a Mike Ratchuk shot from the point to make it a 3-2 contest at the 10:04 mark.

Shots were even at 13 apiece in the second as the first 40 minutes ended with the Crunch still trailing by one.

Any hope of a comeback was dashed as former Crunch right wing Steven Goertzen cashed in at the 5:44 mark of the third and Zack Boychuk added his ninth of the season 1:12 later to push Albany's lead to 5-2.

The River Rats' Mike Murphy was solid in between the pipes all night for his club, stopping 37 of 39 shots in the game.

Check out the Syracuse Crunch Statistics

Share: Facebook | Twitter/X | LinkedIn | Reddit | Email



American Hockey League Stories from December 19, 2009


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central