Fewer Penalties and Power Play Give Crunch Advantage over Bears

By Lauren Winfrey

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - 

The Syracuse Crunch face off against the Hersey Bears
at the War Memorial Arena.
Photo Credit: Julia Morris

                                                                             

There was plenty of anticipation among fans at the Onondaga County War Memorial Friday evening as the Syracuse Crunch looked to extend its point streak to six games. Those fans got what they were hoping for.

The Crunch beat  the Hershey Bears 5-1 in a game with the kind of strategic play head coach Rob Zettler said he likes to see.

“I thought tonight was probably our most complete game start to finish,” Zettler said. “I thought we came out of our end really well. I thought the opportunities we had, we capitalized on them, just some really good work down low by a few guys, but I just thought over all maybe our most complete game of the year.”

The Crunch (7-4-0-3) has won four of its six games in November and picked up points in the other two, losing in overtime.


Bears score first

It was the first time the Crunch and Bears have met this season and early in the first period, Hershey's Kris Newbury scored the first goal of the game. It turned out to be the only goal his team would score all night.

“They got the first goal, but that was really their only decent chance of the whole period,” Zettler said. In the first period I thought we controlled the play for the most part, and even leading up to that goal I thought we were doing well and then ‘boom,’ it’s in the back of our net.”

At the 7:59 mark of the first period, Mike Angelidis scored the equalizer giving the Crunch captain his third goal of the season.

Center Kevin Lynch put the Crunch ahead for good with a goal at 14:11.


Crunch penalty killers come through

 In the second period Hershey had three power-play opportunities, but Syracuse stopped the Bears from scoring.

“I think it was one of our best 60 minute full efforts—just the way we were breaking out of the zone, we were boxing guys out… we were just pushing,” Angelidis said.

The Crunch also had fewer penalties and when they were short-handed the penalty killing team was effective.

“We did a great job on the PK tonight and we got to keep going, we got to keep improving on our special teams—that’s what good teams do,” Angelidis said. We started off slow in that department, but we’ve done a good job working at it and getting better.”

Henri Ikonen, Nikita Nesterov and Jonathan Marchessault had the other Crunch goals, Marchessaults' an empty-netter near the end,


Penguins next

The Crunch travels to Wilkes-Barre Saturday for its second match-up this seasons against the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins.  The Penguins beat the Crunch 5-4 in overtime last Sunday in Syracuse.