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Game Notes: 3/28/08 v. Albany River Rats
Crunch Bite Rats in Overtime as Win Streak Hits Seven
Syracuse, N.Y. (March 28, 2008) - HOT, HOT, HOT. The Syracuse Crunch have done it again. The Crunch defeated the Albany River Rats 3-2 Friday in another overtime thriller in front of 6,084 fans at the Onondaga County War Memorial.
As the sound system played “Don’t Stop Believing”, the theme of the Syracuse season, the team skated off with its season-high seventh straight victory.
However you describe it, the Syracuse Crunch ARE the hottest team in the AHL, going 12-0-0-3 in its last 15 games and have points in 22 of the last 23 games.
Syracuse keeps the pressure on the North Division’s second place team and most likely first round Calder Cup opponent, the Manitoba Moose. The Moose are six points ahead of the Crunch, having lost to the Rochester Americans, 5-4 in a shootout. Both teams have eight games remaining in the regular season.
How much more can you say about Karl Goehring. The mighty mite in-between the pipes was outstanding once again, stopping 35 of 37 shots.
Jamie Johnson sent the game into overtime for Albany with a goal late in the third period with a shot from a sharp angle that found room between Goehring and the post.
Syracuse had the advantage in overtime when Bryan Rodney went off for the Rats.
With four seconds left in the man-advantage, Brett Motherwell one-timed a pass from Derick Brassard from the center-blueline and with Zenon Konopka screening Rats goalie Michael Leighton, the puck deflected off Konopka and found the back of the net sending the Crunch faithful into a frenzy.
Once again it was a total team effort. The defense stepped up and another unlikely goal scorer lit the lamp. Andrie Plekhanov’s blast from the right point found the far top corner seven and a half minutes into the first period.
Albany tied the game early in the second, but a cross-ice pass by Brassard found the tape of Adam Pineault who one-timed a bullet into the short side with 90 seconds left in the second period.
The third period fight card saw a nice preliminary round as Derek Dorsett matched up with Marc Cavosie, but that was just the warm-up to the heavyweight battle of the game as Jon Mirasty locked horns with the Rats’ Trevor Gillies on the ensuing face-off.
The fight lasted almost a full three minutes as Mirasty consistently told the linesmen to stay away because they weren’t through throwing haymakers.
3-Stars—No . 1, Goehring, No. 2, Motherwell, No. 3, Brassard.