Game 42: Syracuse Crunch (25-11-5-0) vs. Hartford Wolf Pack (24-12-3-2)
7 p.m., War Memorial Arena, Syracuse, N.Y.
 
With two points seperating the teams in the Northeast Division standings, the Syracuse Crunch and Hartford Wolf Pack battle Saturday at the War Memorial for the sixth time this season. In the most recent contest, Hartford won in overtime, 3-2, but Syracuse holds a 3-0-2-0 record against the Wolf Pack this year.  

Broadcast Coverage | Countdown to Crunch Time at 6:45 p.m.
Radio: ESPN Radio | 97.7 FM, 1200 AM Syracuse | 100.1 FM, 1440 AM Oswego | Listen Live | 
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Last Time Out
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 30 shots against Lehigh Valley and Yanni Gourde scored two goals for the Crunch in a 4-2 victory Friday over the Phantoms. Outside of a 24 second span when the Phantoms scored on back-to-back possessions, Vasilevskiy performed flawlessly against Lehigh Valley to get his 12th win of the season.

Yanni Gourde ended a nine-game scoreless streak with two goals to increase his team-lead to 15 goals. His first goal was marked as being unassisted, but Dalton Smith got the play going with an open ice check at center ice. On Gourde's second goal, he entered the ice on a 3-on-2 break for the Crunch, ripped a shot toward the net, and rebounded his own past Anthony Stolarz. 

Cody Kunyk scored a one-timer to start the scoring early in the first. Charlie Dodero and Kevin Lynch posted their first professional assists on the play, for Dodero it was his first professional point in his fourth AHL game. 

Scouting the Wolf Pack
For the third time this month, Syracuse meets Northeast Division foe Hartford. The game serves as the sixth of eight games to be played between the two squads after a 2013-14 season in which they never played each other. 

The Wolf Pack rank third in the Northeast Division and trail the second-place Crunch by four points. The same holds true in the Eastern Conference standings where Syracuse ranks fourth and Hartford fifth. Former Crunch goaltender Cedrick Desjardins (8-3-1) suffered a season-ending injury Dec. 26 leaving rookie Mackenzie Skapski (11-7-3-1) as the top goalie.

Eighth-year forward Chris Bourque leads the Pack with 35 points (17g, 18a) and ranks 10th in AHL scoring. The Boston, MA native has registered eight points (4g, 4a) in nine January games. In the season-opener on Oct. 12, the 28-year-old had two assists in a 4-3 win against the Crunch; he later posted a goal and an assist in a 6-5 losing effort on Dec. 5. Bourque was held off the score sheet in Hartford's other three matchups with Syracuse.

Hartford has won seven of nine January games (7-1-1-0), while earning points in seven straight. The Wolf Pack winning streak climbed to four last night with a 4-3 defeat over the Northeast Division-leading Springfield Falcons.

Gourde Gets Going
Yanni Gourde scored twice last night, ending his nine-game goal drought. The scoring skid was the winger's second longest of the season; the Quebec native didn't light the lamp in any of the Crunch's first ten games. Gourde now has fifteen goals for the season, highest on the team.

The performance marked the fourth time this season that Gourde scored twice in one game; the last time the winger tickled the twine twice in one game was Nov. 11 at Hartford. The evening was also the ninth time this season Gourde has recorded multiple points in a game; he had just ten career multi-point games coming into the campaign. Yanni's ten shots last night were a season and career high; the twenty-three year old had never recorded more than seven shots in a game.

All-Star Bound
The 2015 AHL All-Star game takes place Sunday and Monday in Utica and three Syracuse Crunch players will be represented. When their initial selections came out, Vladislav Namestnikov and Nikita Nesterov were both playing with Tampa Bay in the NHL, but Namestnikov was reassigned to Syracuse shortly after hearing his name among the all-stars. Nesterov will miss the game as he is still in Tampa.

In the second round of additions to the All-Star game, Crunch leading-scorer Jonathan Marchessault received the nod to play in Utica as a third Crunch representative for the Eastern Conference. Marchessault ranks tied for fifth in scoring in the AHL with 36 points (10g, 26a). Namestnikov has averaged close to a point-per-game with 18 points (8g, 10a) in 19 starts and will start for the Eastern Conference.

Special Teams
The Crunch went 0-for-8 on the power play Friday against Lehigh Valley and haven't scored a power-play goal in 20 attempts dating back to Joey Mormina's first-period marker against Bridgeport, Jan. 17. The special teams scoring drought drops Syracuse to 29th in the AHL, 11.7%. The penalty kill stopped all five Phantoms' attempts and improved its season total to 81.2%, but still ranks 25th in the league. 

The Wolf Pack have failed to score on 11-straight power-play opportunities and were 0-for-5 Friday against the Springfield Falcons. Hartford ranks 22nd in the league on the man-advantage (14.8%). Chris Bourque leads the Wolf Pack with eight power-play goals, and ranks third in the AHL. The Wolf Pack allowed two power-play goals on six opportunities for the Falcons, and rank 17th in the league (82.8%). 

Lightning Flash
The Tampa Bay Lightning are on break for the NHL All-Star game and three Lightning players will be represented in the weekend's festivities. Tyler Johnson played 80 games in the regular season and playoffs in 2012-13 with the Crunch and scored 86 points in the Calder Cup Finals run. Jonathan Drouin competes in Saturday's rookie skills competition and played two games in Syracuse early this season, scoring a game-winner against Springfield, Oct. 17.

Steven Stamkos joins the former Crunch players as the third representative for the Lightning. Johnson leads Tampa Bay in points with 48 (17g, 31a), Stamkos ranks second with 45 points (26g, 19a), and Drouin has 18 points (2g, 16a) in 37 NHL games.