Syracuse, N.Y. - A 2-0 deficit early in the second period and rampant penalties led to the Syracuse Crunch losing its season opener Saturday at the War Memorial Arena, 3-1, to the Springfield Falcons.

The season's first contest saw physicality, tenacity, toughness, and a lot of penalty minutes. The Crunch finished with 54, the Falcons 34. Syracuse was 0-for-5 on the power-play and the Falcons were 1-for-7.

Team Captain Mike Angelidis said the high volume of penalties were the main factor that disrupted momentum for the Crunch.

"We gotta be better than that," Angelidis said. "Too many penalties, it keeps guys on the bench, or has guys playing more and they get tired. We had momentum and then would take a penalty that forced us to regroup and try to get it back." 

A game that lacked much intensity through a scoreless first 17 minutes, saw the action open up late in the first with goals and brawls that carried over into the second, the first three goals of the game were scored within a six minute stretch. 

With two minutes to play in the first period, Springfield won a battle in the corner for the puck and set up defenseman Denny Urban at the point, who took a shot that deflected off of Kristers Gudlveskis' right pad and onto the stick of forward Mike Hoeffel, who stuck it into the wide open net to give the Falcons a 1-0 lead. 

After the Falcons goal, the Crunch had late chances but couldn't find the back of the net. As time expired in the first period, the Crunch and Falcons were pushing and shoving, which led to a four-minute double minor on Matt Corrente, the second penalty of the game for the Crunch. 

The Crunch killed off J.P. Cote's penalty early in the first period, but wouldn't be as fortunate on the double minor to Corrente. After setting up the first goal, Denny Urban was on the finishing end when he scored 2:19 into the second period with assists from Dana Tyrell and Sean Collins.

The Crunch answered back quickly with an offensive zone faceoff win that led to Mike Blunden scoring from the point 3:48 into the second period to cut the deficit in half. Luke Witkowski and Nikita Nesterov assisted Blunden on the play. 

After making it a one goal difference, the Crunch got its first power-play of the game after Lukas Sedlak was called for roughing. Syracuse failed to get a puck past Anton Forsberg and ended up giving the Falcons another power-play opportunity when J.P. Cote was called for his second penalty of the night. 

The back and forth penalty-fest continued to its climax at the end of the second period when a big hit led to a scrum behind the Springfield net, and a plethora of penalties were handed out. The Falcons saw Jaime Sifers get two minutes for roughing and five minutes for fighting, Mike Hoeffel get five minutes for fighting, and Lukas Sedlak with a 10-minute misconduct. The Crunch saw Cedric Paquette get five minutes for fighting, Jake Dotchin received a 10-minute misconduct, and J.P. Cote received five minutes for fighting, 10-minute misconduct, and ultimately a full game misconduct with 1:38 to play in the period. 

The high number of penalties and inability to get chemistry together is something that Jonathan Marchessault said he hopes that Crunch can fix quickly.
"We played good in the second and the third but just couldn't get on top of it," Marchessault said. "There were a lot of errors, it's the first game of the season. We have to get the offense going."

As the teams traded penalties down the stretch, the chance to finish just wasn't there for the Crunch. Shots either sailed slightly wide, got blocked, or were saved by Anton Forsberg. 

The Crunch now have less than 24 hours to figure out how to reduce the high-level of penalties and come prepared tomorrow against the Hartford Wolf Pack. The matchup will be the first game of the season for Hartford.