Game Notes: 2/18/08 v. Lake Erie Monsters
Crunch Blanked by Monsters
Syracuse, NY (February 18, 2008) - The Syracuse Crunch are having a hard time at home with the Lake Erie Monsters.
Syracuse, NY (February 18, 2008) - The Syracuse Crunch are having a hard time at home with the Lake Erie Monsters.
Syracuse has won three times at the Monsters' rink yet haven't put one in the win column on home ice including Monday's 5-0 shutout at the Onondaga County war Memorial.
Lake Erie's Wyatt Smith put the Monsters on the board with a soft shot two minutes into the game.
Smith once again dribbled one by Syracuse goalie Dan LaCosta four minutes into the third period and Smith sent Eric Healey in on a breakaway nearly three minutes later to open the 3-0 lead.
Eric Healey added an unassisted goal with seven minutes left that caused the Syracuse tempers to boil over.
The frustration level consumed almost the entire Crunch team. Jon Mirasty tried to get Chris Stewart to fight. All of Mirasty's pushing and shoving got was a10-minute misconduct.
Then captian Zenon Konopka, sore hands and all, battled Vladimir Denisov and Aaron Rome battled Johnny Boychuk. As the players went to the bench, Derek Dorsett, Steven Goertzen, Alexandre Picard and Tom Sestito must have started their own scrum, because even though they were pushing and shoving and trading punches with a host of Monsters, they were the only players penalized.
On the resulting power play, that left only four players on the Syracuse bench. Brad Richardson added the fifth goal for Lake Erie.
While Lake Erie was buliding its lead, goalie Mike Wall was building one in front of the Monsters' goal as Syracusse poured a game-high 32 shots at the Lake Erie netminder, yet failed to find the back of the net.
Lake Erie came into the game 10 points behind the fourth place Crunch.
3 Stars--All to Lake Erie--No. 1, Smith, No. 2, Wall, No. 3, Healey