Crunch Fall to Penguins
Syracuse, NY, (Wednesday, December 26, 2007)
Wilkes-Barre, PA (December 26, 2007) – The Syracuse Crunch were defeated by the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins tonight 4-0 at Wachovia Arena in front of 7,668 fans.
The Crunch came out of the gate Wednesday night with a holiday hangover as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton put one on the board just 55 seconds into the contest. Kurtis McLean gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead when he took a centering feed from Tim Wallace just above the hash marks and rifled a slapshot past Crunch starter Karl Goehring.
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton would go up 2-0 when Nathan Smith tallied his 7th of the season just under seven minutes later. Smith took a feed from Connor James and let go a wrister at the bottom of the circle that beat Goehring to the glove side. That goal chased Goehring in favor of Craig Kowalski. Goehring allowed 2 goals on 3 shots.
The physical play escalated after that as Syracuse tried to push the action. Jon Mirasty battled with Penguins enforcer Dennis Bonvie halfway through the period. Alexandre Picard picked up 17 penalty minutes on one play when he was hit by Wilkes-Barre/Scranton defenseman Mark Ardelan. Picard received two minutes for instigating, five for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct. The period ended with the Baby Pens leading 2-0.
It was much of the same for the Crunch in the second period as Smith tallied his second goal of the game at the 8:34 mark. Smith deflected a Ben Lovejoy wrist shot from the point over the right shoulder of Kowalski to give Wilkes-Barre/Scranton the 3-0 lead. Just five seconds after the Smith goal, Tom Sestito and Bonvie both received fighting majors and a game misconduct.
McLean notched his second of the game on another deflection just under two minutes later to give the Penguins a 4-0 lead. Lovejoy again sent a wrister towards the net that McLean tipped past Kowalski. Syracuse’s frustration came to the surface after that goal as Derek Dorsett traded blows with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s Paul Bissonnette.
The pace of the third period slowed down considerably as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton played tight-checking defense the rest of the way. The Crunch were unable to generate much offense. When they did manage to get a few chances, Penguins starter John Curry was there to deny them. He stopped all 20 shots he faced in the game to earn the shutout victory.
CRUNCHABLES: Crunch left wing Joakim Lindstrom came into tonight’s game with 14 points (4g, 10a) in his previous six games…Coming into tonight, Crunch right wing Adam Pineault had a seven-game point-scoring streak (2g, 7a)…Coming into tonight Crunch center Andrew Murray was riding a four-game point-scoring streak (4g, 2a) and has scored one goal in each of those four games…The Crunch came into tonight with a 9-4-1-1 record in their last 15 games…Tonight was the first of back-to-back games against the Penguins…These two teams will meet again tomorrow night at the War Memorial at Oncenter.