Crunch Prevail in Capital City
Syracuse, NY, (Wednesday, November 12, 2008)
Albany, NY (November 12, 2008) – Despite getting outshot by a 41-22 margin, the Syracuse Crunch defeated the Albany River Rats tonight, 5-3, at the Times Union Center in front of 2,173 fans.
The Crunch came out and controlled the early action. Their work paid off when they tallied the first goal of the game at the 8:50 mark of the first period.
Clay Wilson rushed the puck up the ice, fed it to Nikita Filatov and went hard to the net. Filatov’s slapper ricocheted off the shin pads of Wilson and past Albany starter Justin Peters for the 1-0 lead.
Syracuse went up by a 2-0 count just under four and a half minutes later on the power play with Albany’s Dan LaCouture off for tripping. Kris Russell set himself up at the point and took a nice feed from Mike York. The second year pro threaded a slapshot through traffic and into the back of the net past Peters.
Albany answered just under two minutes later on a power play of their own. Stefan Chaput found a rebound off a Jakub Petruzalek shot rushing down the right side and buried the puck into a wide open net past Crunch starter Dan LaCosta to cut the River Rats’ deficit to 2-1.
The River Rats carried their momentum from the end of the first frame into the second stanza when Joe Jensen and Mike Angelidis both tallied goals in the first four and a half minutes to put Albany up 3-2.
LaCosta was replaced by Sebastian Dahm after Albany’s third goal.
The Crunch got one back to tie the game with five minutes left in the second when Jonathan Sigalet’s shot from the left point deflected off an Albany defender’s skate and past Peters to make it 3-3.
Syracuse killed off a full two-minute five on three for the third time in three games when Brian McGuirk and Aaron Rome were carted off for interference and cross-checking, respectively, at the 16:02 mark. On the same play, Rome also received five minutes for fighting with Albany’s Jerome Samson.
The Crunch escaped the second deadlocked at 3-3 despite being outshot by a 23-6 margin.
Syracuse carried its momentum over into the third and re-gained the lead 5:51 into the frame. Peters had trouble handling Russell’s shot from the point and Craig MacDonald got to the rebound and poked it into the cage for a 4-3 advantage.
Filatov almost put the Crunch back up by two when he was sprung on a break away with about eight and a half minutes to go, but rang a shot off the post to keep it a one goal game.
Albany had opportunities to knot the game with three third period power plays, but the Crunch’s kill held strong.
Syracuse iced the game with just under two minutes to go when Filatov and Maksim Mayorov broke in two-on-one and Filatov saucered a pass over to Mayorov who put it into the open side past Peters for a 5-3 Syracuse advantage.
CRUNCHABLES: The Crunch are now 10-0-0-0 when scoring at least two goals…With an assist in the first period, Nikita Filatov extended his point-scoring streak and assist streak to four games…Filatov tied his season and career-high with three points (0g, 3a)…The Crunch have won three games in a row…Alexandre Picard notched his first point, an assist, since being assigned by Columbus on November 9.
Photo Credit: Todd Stuart/Albany River Rats
Photo Credit: Todd Stuart/Albany River Rats