After a gruesome pair of games last week, the Crunch skated in to the weekend looking to get back on track. Friday night marked the beginning of the team’s first 3-and-3 of the season. With the recall of Cory Conacher to the Lightning, and a few lingering injuries, it was obvious that the string of contests would be far from easy.
Friday night the Crunch traveled down to the southern tier for their first tilt of the season against former Cruncher Mike Blunden and the Binghamton Senators. Syracuse jumped over the B-Sens early in the first period when Adam Erne skated in alone and snapped home a wrister past second-year pro goaltender Matt O’Connor. Former St. John’s IceCaps duo Michael Bournival and Gabriel Dumont added goals of their own, bringing their respective goal totals to four each. Matthew Peca also chipped in early in the second period on a Syracuse man advantage.
The Crunch finished the evening going one for four on the power play. Crunch starting net-minder Adam Wilcox stopped 24 out of 27 shots en route to an eventual 4-3 Crunch victory.
Saturday night the Providence Bruins skated in to the Onondaga County War Memorial for the first time since 2013-2014. The Bruins are struggling at the bottom of the Atlantic Division and were looking to build off of a big victory at the Utica Auditorium Friday evening.
Crunch head coach Benoit Groulx opted to go with Wilcox back between the pipes for the second night in a row, and third game overall, and the decision proved wise. Wilcox was a rock for the Crunch, stopping three breakaways and a total of 24 Providence bids. Both Mike Halmo and Cameron Darcy netted their first goals of the season in the contest. Yanni Gourde put home his second of the year. The Crunch would go on to win the contest 3-2.
Sunday afternoon, the boys in blue made their way back down to the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre Scranton for the second week in a row. They left just as disappointed as they had the previous week as their struggles against the Baby Pens continued.
Kristers Gudlevskis was back in goal for Syracuse for the first time since being pulled on Friday, October 21st against the Utica Comets. The Latvian goaltender didn’t fare well. The Penguins tallied three goals in the first period alone.
Wilkes-Barre would tack on another three goals in the contest, with two of them coming on the man advantage. The Penguins downed the Crunch with a 6-1 final. Mike Halmo scored the lone Crunch goal in the game.
The Crunch finish the weekend taking four out of six points and accumulating an overall record of 4-3-0.
