The Syracuse Crunch needed every one of their six goals to hold off the Rochester Americans in the second game of their best of five series. Every time they stretched the lead out, the Amerks came roaring back. Four points from Matthew Peca and two goals from Alex Volkov proved to be enough as the Crunch won 6-5.
For the second straight game the Crunch opened the scoring. Just four minutes into the game Matthew Peca scored with a snapshot just inside the circles on the power play. Matt Bodie and Erik Condra were credited with the assists.
The next three power plays would belong to Rochester and the third one was the charm. With Matt Bodie in the penalty box for a slash, Colin Blackwell tipped a shot from Stuart Percey past Eddie Pasquale. Seth Griffith had the other assist, his third of the series.
Late in the period, the Crunch retook the lead as Mathieu Joseph converted a nice pass from Peca for his first career playoff goal. Dominik Masin had the other assist as the Crunch went up 2-1 with 90 seconds to play in the period.
Tic. Tac. Goal. #SYRvsRCH #CalderCup | #GoGetIt👊 pic.twitter.com/ce0GMlSL6A
— Syracuse Crunch (@SyracuseCrunch) April 21, 2018
The second period started with a flurry of goals. The Crunch started the scoring as Olivier Archambault poked home a rebound off of a Mitchell Stephens shot. Matthew Peca had an assist for his third point of the night. Shortly after, Reid McNeill wristed a shot through traffic that found the back of the net. It was the defenseman’s first goal of the entire season.
Following a time out, the Amerks crawled back into the game. Justin Bailey scored on a short-handed breakaway that was set up by Kevin Porter to make it 4-2. A minute later Stuart Percey scored on his own screened wrist shot from the blue line. Sean Malone and Colin Blackwell had the assists. Despite only generating four shots on net, the Amerks went into the locker room trailing by only one goal, 4-3.
The scoring continued in the third period. Alex Volkov extended the lead to 5-3 as he converted a net front pass from Jamie McBain. Matthew Peca picked up his fourth point of the game on the play. The Crunch couldn’t hold the two goal lead as thirty seconds later, Kevin Porter snuck a shot past Eddie Pasquale to close the game to 5-4.
Volkov picked up his second goal of the game thirty seconds after the Porter goal as the Russian rookie tapped home a rebound off of a Matt Bodie shot. The two goal lead lasted an entire minute before Nicolas Baptiste tipped home a point shot from Andrew MacWilliam.
Despite a five-on-three power play midway through the period, the Amerks were not able to close the gap and the Crunch held on to win 6-5. They are now up two games to none in the best of five series. They will look to close it out on Wednesday as the series shifts to Rochester for Game Three.
Stay tuned for more details in an extended recap tomorrow.
