Rochester, NY (October 18, 2011)- The Syracuse Crunch and Rochester Americans renewed their longtime rivalry with the Crunch losing 3-2 in a shootout tonight at the Blue Cross Arena in Rochester.
Kyle Palmieri didn't waste any time proving why he was chosen as the Reebok/AHL Player of the Week when he gave the Crunch a 1-0 lead just 3:46 into the first period. Palmieri took a Nick Bonino feed and beat Rochester goalie David Leggio to open the scoring.
Left wing Nicolas Deschamps made it 2-0 just 1:32 later when he put a Nathan Smith pass behind Leggio for his first goal of the season.
Rochester cut the Crunch lead in half with 9:49 remaining in the first period with a goal by right wing Jacob Lagace. Left wing Riley Boychuk collected the lone assist on the play.
Rochester got their first power play opportunity 16:28 into the first when Sean Zimmerman was called for delay of game. Syracuse successfully killed the penalty and ended the first with a 2-1 lead. Shots were 15-9 in favor of the Crunch during the first period.
Syracuse successfully killed three consecutive Rochester power plays during the second period before finally being awarded their first power play of the game with just 1:03 remaining in the period.
The Crunch began the third period with 57 seconds of power play time remaining from Boychuk's second period tripping penalty. The Crunch were unable to add to their 2-1 lead, despite three consecutive power plays in the third period.
Rochester capitalized on an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Deschamps with 5:18 remaining in the third period. Nick Crawford beat Tarkki high stick-side, to tie the game 2-2 at the 15:02 mark.
The score remained deadlocked for the remainder of regulation and a five minute overtime period.
Still tied going into the fifth round of the shootout Crunch defenseman Bryan Rodney's shot hit the post, before Jonathan Parker scored the game winner.
Crunchables: Nick Schaus made his Syracuse Crunch debut and Iiro Tarkki made his North American pro debut…Member of Anaheim Hockey operations department Scott Niedermayer was in attendance…Mark Bell, Nathan Smith and Bryan Rodney wore A's in tonight's contest.
