Crunch Fall to Monsters in Overtime
The Syracuse Crunch extended its
season-high and franchise-record winless
streak on the road to 11 games, dropping
a 3-2 decision to the Lake Erie Monsters
in overtime at Quicken Loans Arena
Saturday in front of 6,288 fans.
After killing off a holding the stick penalty on Mike York early
in the first stanza, the Crunch scored the first goal of the game on
a delayed penalty coming to Lake Erie. Petr Pohl found a rebound on
a point shot from Clay Wilson and stuffed it past Monsters’ starter
Jason Bacashihua to put the Crunch up 1-0.
Lake Erie tied the game at 1-1 when the Crunch’s Kevin Harvey
took a hooking penalty 3:47 into the second frame. Codey Burki’s
shot from a sharp angle pulled Dan LaCosta out of the crease and Tom
Fritsche was there to tap in the rebound 58 seconds into the man
advantage.
The Crunch did not let Lake Erie take the momentum after that
goal and retook the lead 1:41 later.
Pohl found the puck in the corner and sent a backhand pass up the
boards to Aaron Rome. Rome’s innocent point shot was deflected
perfectly by Ryan Garlock past Bacashihua to give the Crunch a 2-1
lead.
The Monsters came back to tie the game once again just 2:15 into
the third when Burki stuffed a rebound past LaCosta off a shot from
the slot by T.J. Galiardi.
An exciting back-and-forth extra session was started when LaCosta
stuffed Kyle Cumiskey on a breakaway with his left pad just one
minute in when he broke in free after Steve Kelly could not keep the
puck in the zone.
The Crunch had some chances of their own, but Bacashihua made
some key stops to keep the game going.
Lake Erie’s Mike Vernace netted the winner when he took a
cross-ice feed skating down the slot from former Crunch member
Philippe Dupuis and wristed it past LaCosta with just 13 seconds
remaining.
