Game Notes: 12/15/07 v. Hamilton Bulldogs
Crunch Crush Bulldogs
Syracuse, NY (December 15, 2007) – The Syracuse Crunch defeated the Hamilton Bulldogs tonight, 9-2 at the War Memoiral at Oncenter in front of 5,522 fans.
Both teams came out of the gate ready to go in a fast-paced, exciting first period of hockey. The Crunch would get on the board first on the power play just 2:35 into the period with Hamilton’s David DeSharnais in the box for hooking. Aaron Rome sent a feed across the ice to his defense partner Brett Motherwell.
Motherwell delivered a quick, accurate wrist shot that beat Bulldogs starter Cedrick Desjardins high to the short side to give the Crunch a 1-0 lead. Syracuse went up 2-0 at the 13:17 mark.
Motherwell was again in on the action as he sent a nifty dish to a streaking Joakim Lindstrom down the middle who rifled his team-leading thirteenth goal of the year past Desjardins for the 2-0 lead.
The Crunch extended their lead to 3-0 just over three minutes later. Steven Goertzen cut hard to the net from the right wing boards and threw the puck on goal. A pile-up ensued, Goertzen somehow got a swipe at it and the puck trickled over the line for the tally.
Hamilton got one back with just 1:05 remaining in the stanza when Matt D’Agostini fed the puck to Ajay Baines in front and beat Crunch starter Karl Goehring to the short side to make it 3-1.
The second period picked up right where the first period left off. The Crunch again scored early in the stanza, when Andrew Murray’s persistence paid off just 1:09 in. Murray found a loose puck in front of the net and poked a backhand through Desjardins from his knees to give the Crunch a 4-1 lead. That goal chased Bulldogs’ starter Cedrick Desjardins in favor of Yann Danis.
Despite the Hamilton goaltending change, Syracuse kept pouring it on and cashed in three and a half minutes later. Andrei Plekhanov’s shot from the point deflected off Tom Sestito in front and found its way through Danis to make it 5-1. Plekhanov got in on the goal-scoring action at exactly the 9:00 mark of the period on the man-advantage.
Plekhanov went to the front of the net and took a perfect feed from Zenon Konopka. He sniped a shot to the top corner over the shoulder of Danis to give the Crunch a 6-1 lead. Goehring was solid in goal for Syracuse, making some key saves on a Hamilton 5-on-3 advantage about six minutes into the second period.
Cedrick Desjardins started the third period back in goal after being pulled in favor of Danis after Syracuse’s fourth goal. That did not seem to matter to the Crunch, as they continued to dominate.
Hamilton would cut the lead to 6-2 on a strike from Greg Stewart 4:23 in. The Crunch would fire right back just over two minutes later when Adam Pineault came down the right wing in a short-handed situation and rifled a slapshot past Danis to make it 7-2.
Konopka tallied his second goal of the night when he took a pass in front from Lindstrom and beat Danis to give the Crunch an 8-2 advantage at the 8:54 mark of the third. Konopka and Lindstrom would hook up again for the game’s final tally ten minutes later. Lindstrom came down the wing and sent a pass to a hard-charging Konopka who dove to get a stick on the puck and knocked it past Danis for his second of the game. Syracuse won by the final of 9-2.
CRUNCHABLES: Tonight was the first Crunch home game since a 3-1 win over Albany on December 1…Coming into tonight the Crunch power play was 34-for-164 (20.7%), good for sixth in the league…Brett Motherwell’s tally in the first period was his first of the season and first as a professional…Andrew Murray’s assist on Adam Pineault’s goal was his first assist of the season…Tom Sestito’s goal tonight was his second of the season and first since November 2 @ Hamilton…Syracuse spread the scoring around tonight with eight different goal-scorers on nine total goals; Ten different Crunch players had at least one point…Eight Crunch players notched at least two points tonight…The Crunch matched a season-high in goals tonight with nine; They scored nine goals in a 9-2 win over Rochester back on October 27.