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Crunch Earn First Road Point of the Season
Syracuse, NY, (Saturday, October 17, 2009)
Wilkes-Barre, PA (October 17, 2009) – The Syracuse Crunch earned their first road point of the season tonight, with a 4-3 shootout loss to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins at Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton got on the board first five and a half minutes into the opening period. Tim Wallace went hard to the net, found the puck between two Crunch defenders and swatted a backhand past Dan LaCosta for the 1-0 Penguins lead.
The Crunch answered back less than three minutes later on the power play. Grant Clitsome’s shot from the point came back out in front of the net. Tom Sestito, who was knocked down on the play, swung at the puck and chipped it over John Curry while still on his knees to make it 1-1.
The Baby Pens took the lead back, scoring the second period’s only goal between both teams at the 14:19 mark on a 5-on-3 opportunity.
Ryan Bayda took a pass from Chris Connor and buried it from the top of the crease to give Wilkes-Barre/Scranton back the lead at 2-1.
Syracuse once again stormed back to tie the game with another power play goal when Pascal Pelletier made a slick move around a Penguin defender and dished the puck to Alexandre Picard. Picard quickly moved it to Jonathan Sigalet who buried it past Curry to make it a 2-2 game.
The Crunch kept their momentum going and took their first lead of the game 36 seconds later with a shorthanded goal from Derek MacKenzie, who broke in down the off-wing and backhanded a shot through the legs of Curry to make it 4-3 in favor of Syracuse.
The lead was very short-lived, however, as the Baby Pens scored to tie the game for the third time just 31 seconds later on Bayda’s second goal of the game when his slapper caromed straight up in the air, came down behind LaCosta and trickled over the line to deadlock the contest at 3-3.
The game remained that way through the rest of regulation and overtime.
Mark Letestu and Wyatt Smith tallied for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in the shootout while Curry stopped all four Crunch shooters he faced.
CRUNCHABLES: With his shorthanded goal tonight, MacKenzie moved into a tie for fourth place on the Crunch all-time list in shorthanded goals (7)…Jared Aulin’s next game will be the 200th of his AHL career…Tom Sestito has goals in back-to-back games.