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AHL Syracuse Crunch

Crunch Weekly

January 21, 2014 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Syracuse Crunch News Release


Last Week

Fri., Jan. 17 - Crunch vs. Hershey - W, 3-2

Sat., Jan. 18 - Crunch vs. Binghamton - L, 6-3

This Week

Fri., Jan. 24 - Crunch vs. Hershey - 7 p.m.

Sat., Jan. 25 - Crunch at Hershey - 7 p.m.

Sun., Jan. 26 - Crunch at Bridgeport - 5 p.m.

Need to Know

- After a win vs. Hershey Friday, Syracuse had its season-best, six-game point streak ended by Binghamton Saturday.

- All-Star Brett Connolly recorded his second career hat trick, Syracuse's third of the year, Saturday vs. the Senators.

- The Crunch play their first three-in-three of the season in Week 17 vs. Hershey, at Hershey and at Bridgeport.

Syracuse briefly climbed out of the East Division cellar in Week 16 thanks to a 3-2 victory over Hershey Friday. However, a 6-3 setback against division-leading Binghamton Saturday, coupled with Hershey victories Saturday and Sunday, left the Crunch back in 5th place.

The Bears hold a four-point edge over the Crunch for fourth in the division but the clubs meet twice in Week 17, the first two games of the second half of Syracuse's regular season. The Crunch cap the weekend in Bridgeport to complete their first three-in-three series of the season. After zero three-in-three series in the first 16 weeks of the season, Syracuse has seven in the final 13 weeks.

Transactions

- 01/19/2014 Maxime Langelier-Parent (C) DEL Returned on loan to Florida (NHL)

- 01/17/2014 Andrej Sustr (D) ADD Loaned from Tampa Bay (NHL)

- 01/16/2014 Riku Helenius (G) DEL Reassigned by Tampa Bay (NHL) to Florida (ECHL)

Halfway there

At the halfway point of the regular season (38 games) the Crunch are 17-15-2-4, fifth in the East Division, 12th in the Eastern Conference and 20th in the AHL. While the season's first 38 games were played over 16 weeks, the final 38 games are cramped into 13 weeks. Syracuse's first half had 17 home games, while the second half features 21.

At the War Memorial, the Crunch have slipped back below .500 at 7-8-0-2. Scoring 45 goals while allowing 54 at home, the Crunch have a minus-9 goal differential. On the road, the Crunch are 10-7-2-2, but still have a minus-5 differential, scoring 55 goals and allowing 60. Overall, the goal-scoring differential is minus-14, 21st in the AHL.

The Crunch power play is 16th in the AHL at 17.0%, 30-for-176. That's only a slight drop from last year, when the Crunch finished 12th in the AHL at 17.4%.

The penalty kill at the halfway mark is 80.9%, 19th in the league, but dead last at home. A season ago the Syracuse penalty kill was ninth in the league, successfully killing 84.4% of opponents' power-play opportunities.

At the halfway point, the Crunch Achilles' heel has been third-period play. In the first two periods Syracuse has an even goal differential (30-30 in the first, 38-38 in the second), but in the third period the Crunch are minus-11, allowing 40 while scoring only 29. Just two teams in the league have scored fewer goals in the third than the Crunch. Syracuse after two periods of play is 1-2-0-1 when tied, 1-5-0-0 when trailing and 5-1-0-1 when leading.

Hat tricks

With three goals Saturday against Binghamton Brett Connolly became the third Crunch player to register a hat trick this season, joining Nikita Kucherov (Oct. 12 vs. Rochester) and Evan Rankin (Dec. 18 at Hershey). Connolly now has two hat tricks in his AHL career. His first came April 13, 2012 against Rochester.

As a team, the Crunch had six hat tricks last regular season, including Connolly's. The others were from J.T. Brown (Nov. 25 at Worcester), J.T. Wyman (Feb. 15 at Binghamton), Tyler Johnson (Feb. 18 at Albany; April 19 vs. Norfolk), and Ondrej Palat (Feb. 26 at Rochester). Postseason hat tricks came from Johnson (May 11 vs. Springfield) and Philippe Paradis (June 6 vs. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton).

Multi-point performers

Vlad Namestnikov picked up a pair of assists Saturday night, giving him his eighth multi-point game of the season, pacing the Crunch. He has two such games in eight contests since returning from injury Dec. 31.

Brett Connolly had his sixth multi-point game Saturday, which ties him with Nikita Kucherov and Cedric Paquette for second most. All six of Connolly's multi-point games have come in the last 12 games (10g, 9a). An additional 15 players for the Crunch have registered a multi-point game this season. Evan Rankin and Matt Taormina both have three, although Taormina hasn't had one since Oct. 19 at Binghamton (1g, 1a). Players with two multi-point games are Joey Mormina, J.T. Brown, Dana Tyrell, Danick Gauthier, and Nikita Nesterov.

Last season, Tyler Johnson led the Crunch with 18 multi-point efforts. A total of 22 players had at least one multi-point game during the regular season for Syracuse.

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

Game 37: Crunch hold off Bears, 3-2

Mike Angelidis scored once in the first and Vald Namestnikov and Jon DiSalvatore each added one in the second as the Crunch defeated the Bears, 3-2, Friday night in Syracuse. The win extended the Crunch's point streak to a season high six games.

Tanner Richard registered his first professional multi-point game with a pair of assists, starting with the primary helper on Angelidis's first period goal, his fifth tally this year. After Chay Genoway knotted the game at 1-1 with a marker late in the first, Namestnikov staked the Crunch to a 2-1 lead with a shorthanded goal, the fifth such goal for Syracuse this season. Vlad's 12th goal of the season, coupled with DiSalvatore's second, which he would add less than nine minutes later, gave the Crunch a 3-1 advantage.

Hershey would get one back 5:32 into the third, but the Bears couldn't beat Crunch goaltender Kristers Gudlevskis for a third time, as he finished with 20 saves on 22 shots for the win.

Game 38: Senators slip by Syracuse, ending Crunch points streak

Brett Connolly scored his second career hat trick, but the Crunch were doubled up by the Binghamton Senators, 6-3, Saturday night in Syracuse. Three goals in a four-minute, first-period stretch for the Senators doomed the Crunch, as they saw their six-game point streak come to an end.

Connolly opened the scoring 5:59 into the first period with a power-play goal, his tenth of the season. Binghamton responded by scoring the game's next three goals to go ahead, 3-1. Connolly cut the deficit to one with a goal late in the first. After the period Crunch goaltender Kristers Gudlevskis was replaced by Cedrick Desjardins.

Gudlevkskis, who had allowed only two goals in his previous nine periods, allowed three in the first on 11 shots. Desjardins suffered the loss, however, stopping 15 of the Sens last 17 shots. The Senators built the lead back to two with a power-play goal in the second, only to see it trimmed back to one, with Connolly's third goal of the game just 4:01 into the third. The Senators struck twice more in the third, including an empty-net goal, to win 6-3. The Crunch fired 38 shots on Binghamton's Andrew Hammond, but solved him only three times.

THE WEEK AHEAD

Crunch vs. Hershey-Friday, 7 p.m. & at Hershey-Saturday, 7 p.m.

ESPN Radio 97.7 FM & 1200 AM, Syracuse; 100.1 FM & 1440 AM, Oswego

The Crunch begin a three-in-three weekend with a home-and-home series against the Hershey Bears. These will be the fourth and fifth matches of eight between the two teams this season. After Syracuse lost 4-3 in a shootout Dec. 18 the Crunch have won the last two meetings, both by 3-2 scores Dec. 27 and Jan. 17.

It is also a three-in-three weekend for the Bears as they host Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Sunday. After losing to the Crunch on Friday, the Bears concluded last weekend with wins over Bridgeport and Albany. They are 19-14-3-3 for 44 points, sitting in fourth in the East Division and eighth in the Eastern Conference.

Hershey is led by right wing Brandon Segal's 33 points (13g, 20a) although he had his seven-game scoring streak snapped this weekend. Center Jeff Taffe has 26 points (9g, 17a) and left wing Nicolas Deschamps has 23 points (11g, 12a). Taffe is on a five-game scoring streak (2g, 6a), as is Michael Latta (1g, 5a). Defenseman Chay Genoway has ten points (2g, 8a) this season, but he has seven points (1g, 6a) in his last seven games, including a goal and an assist Friday against the Crunch.

David Leggio has played 26 games in goal for the Bears. He has a 12-12-2 record with a 2.73 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage.

Evan Rankin (3g, 1a) and Mike Angelidis (1g, 3a) lead the Crunch with four points in three games against the Bears. Rankin's first AHL hat trick came in Hershey Dec. 18.

Crunch at Bridgeport-Sunday, 5 p.m.

ESPN Radio 97.7 FM & 1200 AM, Syracuse; 100.1 FM & 1440 AM, Oswego

Syracuse visits Bridgeport to close the season series with the Sound Tigers Sunday. The Crunch shut out the Sound Tigers 5-0 Oct. 26 in the first match, giving the Crunch (2-5-1-1) only their second win against Bridgeport over the last five seasons.

The Sound Tigers have a three-in-three this weekend, facing Portland and Springfield on the road before returning home to play the Crunch. Bridgeport is 15-22-1-4 with 35 points this year, putting the Sound Tigers in fourth in the Northeast Division and 14th in the Eastern Conference.

Despite missing 16 games between Dec. 10-Jan. 12 while on recall with the New York Islanders, rookie Ryan Strome leads Bridgeport with 36 points (9g, 27a) in 26 games, including three assists in his three games back in the AHL. He is only two points behind Texas's Curtis McKenzie for the AHL rookie scoring lead, despite playing in 14 fewer games. He leads all rookies with 27 assists. Rookie Andres Lee is second on the team in scoring with 32 points (16g, 16a) and he leads all rookies in goal scoring. Mike Halmo is third with 29 points (14g, 15a), while riding a three-game scoring streak (2g, 3a).

With goaltender Andres Nilsson on recall with the Islanders, Bridgeport has seen two goalies split time in net. Kenny Reiter has played in 19 games and has a 7-9-2 record with a 3.02 goals-against average and a .892 save percentage. He's lost four straight games since being returned by the Islanders. Parker Milner has seen action in seven games with a 3-2 record, 2.97 goals-against average and .902 save percentage. Since being recalled from ECHL-Stockton, Milner is 2-1 in three starts for Bridgeport.

Luke Wiktowski had a pair of assists in the first match against Bridgeport, leading active Crunch players with two points. Goaltender Kristers Gudlevskis made 22 saves for a shutout in his first career AHL start.

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