AHL Syracuse Crunch

Picard Lifts Crunch to Win Over Albany

February 28, 2009 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Syracuse Crunch News Release


Syracuse, NY - Left wing Alexandre Picard netted three points, including the game-winning goal and Sebastian Dahm made 26 saves as the Syracuse Crunch defeated the Albany River Rats tonight, 5-2, in front of 5,978 fans at the War Memorial at Oncenter.

Trying to make it a sweep in their two weekend home games after a thrilling 6-5 win over Grand Rapids last night, the Crunch came out looking to get re-acquainted with Albany, after not playing the Rats since January 16.

Two penalties at the 6:33 and 7:47 marks by Trevor Frischmon and Mike Blunden, respectively, put the Crunch down by two men for 46 seconds. Syracuse was able to hold off Albany's two-man advantage and Frischmon came out of the box to join the kill, only to hand off his stick to Dan Smith who had broken his stick just seconds earlier.

What ensued was a hard-working penalty kill for the Crunch and a frenzy of blocked shots, in particular by Smith and a stick-less Frischmon, that gave Syracuse some momentum.

The Crunch carried that momentum for the rest of the period and drew a late power play opportunity when Albany's Jakub Petruzalek was escorted off for interference at the 17:26 mark.

On a great individual effort, Picard took a pass from Dan Spang at center ice and took off down the right wing. With a defenseman on him, Picard barreled his way to the front of the cage and stuffed a shot through Justin Peters to put the Crunch up 1-0 at the 18:07 mark

Building off their late first period marker, Syracuse struck again just 35 seconds into the second stanza.

Mike York collected the puck behind the goal line to the left of Peters and fed a pass back to Grant Clitsome at the point. Clitsome fired a wrister at the net that caused a rebound and came right to Picard, who slammed the puck past Peters to put the Crunch ahead 2-0. The tally was Picard's second of the game.

The Crunch stretched its lead to 3-0 ten and a half minutes later when Dan Smith sent a long outlet pass from his own zone to York who managed to stay on-side and break in alone on Peters.

Peters got a piece of York's backhand bid, but the disk found its way over the line and into the back of the net for the three-goal cushion.

Syracuse added another tally at the 18:13 mark when Mike Blunden found Nick Holden creeping in from the left point and fed him the puck. Holden one-timed Blunden's pass past Peters to stretch the Crunch's lead to 4-0.

Albany did not want the game to completely get away and managed to get on the board just one minute, eighteen seconds later.

Aaron Clarke found an open Mike Angleidis in the slot, who made no mistake and fired it past Sebastian Dahm to cut it to 4-1.

The Crunch re-gained their four-goal lead seven minutes into the third period.

Picard stole the puck along the right wing boards and center ice and chipped it up to Derek MacKenzie. MacKenzie skated in alone and beat Peters with a shot low to the stick side to make it a 5-1 game.

Albany's Jerome Samson tallied his 16th of the campaign with 14 seconds remaining in regulation, but Syracuse pulled out the 5-2 victory.

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American Hockey League Stories from February 28, 2009


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