Rats and Crunch end in 2-2 tie
AHL American Hockey League

Rats and Crunch end in 2-2 tie

by Ed Gonser
December 20, 2002 - American Hockey League (AHL)


Syracuse, (December 20, 2002)--Kiss your sister lately? Brett Clouthier's second period goal earned the Albany River Rats a 2-2 American Hockey League tie with the Syracuse Crunch Friday in front of 4,675 holiday energized fans at the War Memorial at Oncenter.

Syracuse goalie J.F. Labbe on conditioning assignment from the Columbus Blue Jackets reached down to cover a puck in his crease and force a faceoff near the 14-minute mark of the second period but before he could hold on Clouthier managed to get the blade of his stick on the puck and poke it into the Syracuse goal to tie the game at two.

Labbe stopped 26 of 28 Albany chances while his counterpart Scott Clemmensen in the nets turned aside 23 Syracuse opportunities.

It was a game between two bad teams playing a bad game. Both teams looked like they made one too many trips to the punch bowl at the holiday office party. They struggled finding a teammate with a pass and clearing their own zone was an adventure in wonderland.

Jeremy Reich opened the scoring for Syracuse (11-15-2-0) with nearly four-minutes left in the first period. Reich pounced on the second rebound allowed by Clemmensen during a flurry of shots by the Crunch and flicked the puck into the top right corner.

Albany (11-13-5-3) answered 37 seconds later. Daryl Andrews, standing at the Syracuse blueline, lifted a soft backhand shot toward the Syracuse goal. The puck hit the crossbar and dropped in behind a startled Labbe.

Syracuse regained the lead on the power play with less than three minutes left in the first period. Albany's Greg Crozier was sent off for hooking and eight seconds later the David Ling fired a shot from the left point past Clemmensen.

Syracuse finished strong putting more shots on the Rats goal (5) in the five-minute overtime than in the entire second period (3).

Syracuse will try to a notch in the win column while Labbe is in town against the Springfield Falcons Saturday night with faceoff set for 7:30 PM.

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central.

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