Please Don't Stop the Winning--Crunch Get Huge 'W' in Hamilton
Syracuse, NY, (Monday, March 3, 2008)
Playing their third game in three days and fourth in six, the supposed-to-be weary Syracuse Crunch came out with a lot of jump and took it to the Hamilton Bulldogs early on.
That rush of adrenaline led to the Crunch breaking the scoreless tie halfway through the first on a great individual effort by Clay Wilson. Wilson took a pass from Joakim Lindstrom and chipped the puck into the offensive zone.
Wilson pursued the dump-in, stole the puck from the Hamilton defenseman and found Adam Pineault coming down the slot. Pineault’s shot beat Bulldogs starter Jaroslav Halak to give Syracuse the 1-0 lead
Hamilton stormed out of the locker room for the second period determined to tie the game. They did just that just 35 seconds in when Kyle Chipchura found Brett Engelhardt on the left side of the net. Engelhardt one-time the puck and buried it past Goehring to make it 1-1.
Just over one minute later, Derek Dorsett tried to spark the Crunch by dropping the gloves with Hamilton’s Mathieu Biron. That seemed to help Hamilton more, as they ended up out-shooting the Crunch 13-5 in the period.
Hamilton took their first lead of the game late in the second stanza. With his teammate Mathieu Carle in the box for interference, Chipchura found the puck, skated in around David Cullen and put the puck past Goehring for the short-handed goal to give the Bulldogs a 2-1 advantage.
With playoff implications on the line, the Crunch came out roaring in the third period.
Hamilton defenseman Jon Gleed took a holding penalty 2:40 into the third. Just 10 seconds into the power play, Zenon Konopka took a pass from Joakim Lindstrom and sniped it over the shoulder of Halak and into the upper right corner of the cage to tie the game at 2-2.
Just under two minutes later, Lindstrom took a feed from Wilson inside the offensive zone, came in and knifed a shot inside the far post to give the Crunch a 3-2 lead.
Hamilton pulled their goalie with less than a minute to go. Trevor Frischmon iced the game by scoring an empty-net goal with 2.7 seconds left to give the Crunch the victory.
Karl Goehring stopped 14 third period shots and had 38 saves in the game.
CRUNCHABLES: The Crunch are 8-2-0-4 in their last 14 games… The Crunch have a six-game point streak and have gotten at least a point in 12 of their last 13 games…Trevor Frischmon’s empty-net goal was his first in 35 games…Karl Goehring made his fifth straight start and is 4-0-0-1 over that span.