.jpg)
.jpg)
Game Notes: 12/22/07 v. Hartford Wolfpack
Christmas Comes Early for Crunch
Hartford, CT (December 22, 2007) – With their last game before the holiday break, the Syracuse Crunch defeated the Hartford Wolf Pack tonight, 4-3 at the XL Center in front of 3,539 fans.
Fans did not have to wait long for the action to unfold when some extra-curricular activities took place just 1:39 into the game. Stemming from that incident, Syracuse’s Zenon Konopka and Derek Dorsett both received game misconducts along with Hartford defensemen Corey Potter and Jake Taylor.
Hartford would get on the board first on the ensuing power play when Wolf Pack rookie Artem Anisimov stuffed a rebound past the outstretched pad of Crunch starter Karl Goehring at the 3:37 mark.
The Crunch stormed back just under three minutes later. With Joakim Lindstrom in the box for hooking, Andrew Murray raced in on a short-handed partial breakaway and jammed a second-effort backhand rebound past Hartford goaltender Miika Wiikman to tie the game at 1-1.
Syracuse pulled ahead 2-1 at the 12:31 mark on a power play marker from Derek MacKenzie. MacKenzie took a perfect cross-ice feed from Aaron Rome and buried it up high for his 13th of the campaign.
Things did not start well for the Crunch in the second stanza as Hartford d-man Thomas Pock scored back-to-back goals in a 2:26 span to give the Wolf Pack a 3-2 lead.
His first tally came on a centering feed from Pierre Parenteau. Parenteau fed it to the front of the cage and Pock fired it past Goehring to tie the game 2-2.
Pock’s next tally came when he wristed a shot from the bottom of the right circle that hit Goehring, went up in air, came down and just trickled over the goal line. The goal gave Hartford the 3-2 advantage.
The Crunch struck back with just 13 seconds remaining in the period. MacKenzie found the puck behind the goal line and fed Lindstrom at the hash marks. Lindstrom lasered a wrister over the glove of Wiikman to tie the game 3-3.
Hartford got into penalty trouble when they took two penalties in a 38 second span about five minutes into the third period. The Crunch took advantage of that 5-on-3 when Lindstrom’s second effort to get a shot away knuckled past Wiikman to give the Crunch a 4-3 lead. It was Lindstrom’s second of the game and team-leading 14th of the season.
Goehring turned aside some key Wolf Pack scoring opportunities down the stretch and made 31 saves on the evening. The Crunch held on for the 4-3 victory.
CRUNCHABLES: Crunch captain Zenon Konopka came into tonight riding a five-game point-scoring streak (5g, 5a)…Syracuse had a season-high 52 penalty minutes tonight…With 3 points (2g, 1a) tonight, Lindstrom has 14 points, (4g, 10a) in 6 games since being returned by Columbus.