SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The Syracuse Crunch were blanked by Brian Foster and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, 3-0, tonight at the War Memorial Arena.
 
The Crunch were handed their second loss by the Penguins this season as they move to 11-11-3-1. The Penguins earned their fourth shutout in five contests and improve to 21-5-0-1.
 
Crunch goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy turned aside 20 of 23 in defeat. His counterpart, Foster, registered the shutout, blocking all 30 Crunch shots. Syracuse was unable to convert on the power-play, but killed both Wilkes-Barre/Scranton man-advantages.
 
The Penguins first lit the lamp at the 6:20 mark of the opening frame. Tom Kostopoulos notched his seventh of the season off assists from Oskar Sundqvist and Niclas Andersen.
 
The Crunch held the Penguins at bay during the middle stanza, but allowed two more tallies in the final measure. Early in the third, Will O'Neill fired through traffic from the blue line. Kael Mouillierat and Bryan Rust picked up the helpers. At the 5:19 mark, Dominik Simon passed from behind the cage for Tom Kuhnhackl to score while open in the slot.
 
Despite outshooting the Penguins, the Crunch were unable to solve Foster and fell, 3-0.
 
Syracuse will travel to square-off against the Hershey Bears Sunday at 5 p.m.
 
Single game and season tickets are on sale now and can be purchased either in person at the Crunch Box Office located in the War Memorial on 800 South State Street in Syracuse or by calling the office at 315-473-4444. For the latest Crunch news, visit www.syracusecrunch.com or follow the club on Facebook (www.facebook.com/syracusecrunch), Twitter (@SyracuseCrunch) and Instagram (@officialsyracusecrunch) using #SyrCrunch and #BelieveInBlue.
 
Crunchables: Three shots-against in the first period were the fewest allowed by the Crunch in one stanza this season…This is the third time the Crunch have been shutout this year.