Game Notes: 4/25/08 v. Manitoba Moose
Crunch Drop Game Four to Moose
Winnipeg, MB (April 25, 2008) – The Syracuse Crunch fell to the Manitoba Moose tonight, 5-2 at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg. The Syracuse loss evened their best-of-seven North Division Semifinal series at two games apiece.
Looking to take a three games to one lead in the series, the Crunch came out strong and controlled play from the opening face-off. They finally cashed in at the 11:26 mark when Joakim Lindstrom scored his second goal of the series.
On the power play, David Cullen sent the puck to Andrei Plekhanov, who faked a slapshot and sent a perfect pass over to Lindstrom who buried the puck into an open net for a 1-0 Crunch lead.
Manitoba answered on a 5-on-3 advantage with 10 seconds to go in the first frame. Danny Groulx took a one-timer from Jannik Hansen and fired the puck past Karl Goehring to tie the game at 1-1.
The Moose capitalized on the momentum built in the second period as Alexandre Bolduc nabbed his first goal of the playoffs halfway through the second stanza.
Off a face-off, Maxime Fortunus corralled the puck, slid in down the right side and sent a perfect feed over to Bolduc who deposited the puck into the empty net to give Manitoba a 2-1 advantage.
Jason Jaffray tallied just 27 seconds later to make it 3-1. Just a minute and a half later, Michael Grabner notched his third of the playoffs when he fired a wrister past Goehring to give Manitoba a 4-1 lead.
The Crunch got one back with just under three minutes left in the second when Derek MacKenzie broke in short-handed and slid one past Schneider to cut the deficit to 4-2.
Syracuse could not mount a comeback in the third period and Manitoba’s Mike Brown added an empty-net goal to make it 5-2 with one minute left in regulation to seal the victory for the Moose.