Crunch by the Dozen
Syracuse, NY, (Wednesday, April 9, 2008)
Cleveland, OH (April 8, 2008) – The Syracuse Crunch defeated the Lake Erie Monsters tonight, 4-2 at the Quicken Loans Arena in front of 4,258 fans. The team extended their franchise-record and AHL season-high winning streak to twelve games
The Crunch wasted no time and picked up right where they left off from a 10-goal explosion against Rochester on Sunday.
Red-hot rookie Derick Brassard got things going just under five minutes into the game when he tucked a shot under the crossbar on the rebound of a Dan Smith shot from the point to give the Crunch an early 1-0 advantage.
Syracuse struck again just a minute and a half later when Nate DiCasmirro tallied his 11th goal of the season. Gilbert Brule raced in down the left side and fired a shot on net. DiCasmirro found the loose rebound and roofed it to the upper right hand corner of the cage to give the Crunch a 2-0 lead.
Dan LaCosta left the game after playing just six and a half minutes and was replaced by backup Adam Munro.
The Crunch struck early again in the second period, when Mark Rycroft deflected a Brett Motherwell point shot through Lake Erie starter Tyler Weiman to make it 3-0 in favor of Syracuse just 33 seconds in.
Joakim Lindstrom scored a power play marker at the 7:53 mark when Duvie Westcott fanned on a slapper from the slot and the puck came right to his stick. Lindstrom poked in the easy goal and gave the Crunch a 4-0 advantage.
Lake Erie got on the scoreboard on the power play with exactly three minutes left in the second when Wyatt Smith was credited with his 16th of the year, even though the replay on the scoreboard showed that the puck appeared to be kicked in during a pileup.
The Monsters tacked on another power play tally eight and a half minutes into the third frame. Chris Stewart took a pass from Jeff Jillson and wristed a shot past Munro to make it 4-2.
The Crunch shut down the Monsters offense the rest of the way as Munro turned aside 25 of 27 Lake Erie shots for the 4-2 victory
CRUNCHABLES: The Crunch have gotten at least a point in 20 straight games (17-0-0-3) and are 21-1-0-5 in their last 27 games…Syracuse is now 4-0-0-1 on Tuesdays…Derick Brassard now has 19 points (6g, 13a) in his last 8 games…Nate DiCasmirro has 5 points (2g, 3a) in his last 3 games…Since December 1, the Crunch are 36-13-1-6.