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Daniel Walcott injured in Syracuse Crunch’s 3-1 win over Toronto

Posted on by Hardev

The Syracuse Crunch arrived in Toronto Wednesday to play the Marlies for the third time this season. After getting swept in the weekend series that these two teams played in the middle of November, the third time was the charm fort Syracuse. The Crunch beat the Marlies by a score of 3-1.

Unfortunately, their solid win would not be the story of this game.

Here are my play-by-play thoughts.

First Period

Syracuse gets the first power play of the game after Colin Greening takes a tripping penalty. On the power play, Jamie McBain gets a few chances to shoot the puck from the point, but is ultimately stopped by Garret Sparks, who makes some unscreened positional saves.

Soon after the Crunch power play expires, Daniel Walcott takes a penalty for boarding, sending the Marlies to a power play of their own. The power play ends with Louis Domingue having to make one difficult save off of a tip in the slot, but otherwise there was solid defending from the Crunch.

1-0

The former Maple Leaf draft pick Chris DiDominico, curently on loan to the Crunch through a conditioning assignment, scores a goal on the organization that drafted him with a BEAAAUUUTTYYYYY of a shot that hit the short-side post, then the crossbar before landing emphatically in the back of the net. I let out a very audible WOW!! when the goal happened, so you know it was good.

Andrew Nielsen then takes a tripping penalty after yet another open-ice hit by a Marlies defender on a Crunch forward. Momentum is brewing for this Crunch side.

Being the third match-up between these two teams, it’s clear that there is some animosity left over from two weekends ago. The Marlies rear-guards have not been afraid to step up on forwards with their heads down On the flip-side, the Crunch have literally been crunching the Marlies’ wingers into the boards every time they aren’t skating at full speed.

Second Period

Early in the period, Andreas Johnsson is sprung on a breakaway for the Marlies. He dekes left to right before trying to slide the puck home back left but Domingue gets a piece of the puck, slowing it down. Uhm, it’s not slowing down enough! Someone stop that puck! Ben Thomas is the man of the hour, stopping the puck with his stick before firing it back out of the zone.

And so begins my #SaveAssist Campaign. We need to know how many defenders have valiently stopped a puck for their goalie.  We need that information quantized! More stats! More numbers!

Join the resistance. #SaveAssist

A few minutes into the second, Erik Cernak takes a high-sticking penalty, sending the Marlies to the man-advantage

The Incident

As the Toronto powerplay ends, Daniel Walcott hits Dymtro Timashov along the boards near the Crunch bench, sending the Marlies winger to the ground before almost immediately falling ontop of Timashov. Andrew Nielsen sees his 5’10” teammate being smothered by Walcott and goes after the Crunch defender.

Nielsen picks Walcott up from the ice and starts shoving him into the boards that are in front of the Toronto bench, meaning there is no glass to keep Walcott upright.

Walcott, who has his gloves on, puts Nielsen in a headlock. Nielsen also had one hand around Walcott’s shoulder, his other hand is sans glove and is punching Walcott.

Nielsen throws a few punches as the two wrestle. Suddenly Walcott falls out of Nielsens grasp, toppling to the ice.

Nielsen throws two punches before he realizes what has happened and backs away from Walcott who is face down on the ice. After spending several minutes on the ice, the Crunch defender has to be stretchered off the ice by the medical staff. He would not return to the game.

The official update from the team is “lower body injury”

From what I could see at ice-level, it appears to be his right leg that was injured.

After the game, Marlies coach Sheldon Keefe had this to say about the fight.

“I saw two guys grab each other. It’s a scrum, Nielsen only gets one glove off and throws a… I dont know if you would even call that a punch.

To me thats 4 minutes for roughing [for Nielsen] and two minutes [for Walcott] on the other side. We’re shorthanded and killing 2 minutes rather than kill 5 minutes.

Maybe they were reacting to the injury, which didn’t have anything to do with the altercation, at least the fight part of it didn’t.”

The referees assessed an aggressor penalty to Nielsen for the altercation. Below is the excerpt of the AHL rulebook.

Rule 46.2 – Aggressor – The aggressor in an altercation shall be the player (or goalkeeper) who continues to throw punches in an attempt to inflict punishment on his opponent who is in a defenseless position or who is an unwilling combatant.

A player (or goalkeeper) must be deemed the aggressor when he has clearly won the fight but he continues throwing and landing punches in a further attempt to inflict punishment and/or injury on his opponent who is no longer in a position to defend himself.

A player who is deemed to be the aggressor of an altercation shall be assessed a major penalty for fighting and a game misconduct.

[…]

A player who is deemed to be both the instigator and aggressor of an altercation shall be assess an instigating minor penalty, a major penalty for fighting, a ten-minute misconduct (instigator) and a game misconduct penalty (aggressor).

With Nielsen coming over to initiate the fight after Walcott’s hit, he was deemed to be the instigator of the altercation. Further, he landed multiple punches to Walcott’s head after he had gone down to the ice which the referees deemed to be sufficient for award the aggressor game misconduct as well.

Back to the game

The Crunch resume play on a 5 minute power play due to Nielsen’s extra fighting major.

2-0

Kevin Lynch gets a goal for his injured teammate while on the powerplay. Lynch, who is standing very much in Sparks’ personal bubble, tips a pass from Reid McNeill (who is standing behind the red line for some reason). Lynch is stopped by Sparks but is able to find his own rebound and score on the Marlies’ netminder.

Third Period

2-1

Toronto’s 18-year-old defenseman Timothy Liljegren sends a puck towards the crease, where it bounces off Frederik Gauthier and into the net.

THE PLAY IS UNDER REVIEW

Bah, Toronto’s “Freddy the Goat” did not deflect the puck with his skate in a distict kicking motion, it’s still a good goal.

With 9:04 left in the game, Adam Erne and Kasperi Kapanen get into a tussle along the half-wall in the Syracuse zone. Kapanen drops Erne who does not get up right away. The whistle is blown and Erne takes a minute before getting up off the ice on his own, heading to the Crunch locker room.

The rest of the game sees the Marlies attempting to apply pressure in order to tie the game up, but the Crunch do a solid job at holding the blueline and not allowing Toronto’s high-end forwards a chance at Domingue’s net. With two minutes to go in the game, Kapanen and Johnsson are able to team up for a chance at Domingue but the former Arizona Coyote netminder stops the first shot as well as the rebound. The rebound was not as necessary because of the fact that Kapanen had skated into the net, causing it to become dislodged, negating any attempt at the net.

3-1

Hometown boy Cory Conacher gets the empty-netter from right next to the penalty boxes with a minute left in the game, sealing the deal.

And that’s how the game ends, a 3-1 win for the Crunch, their first in Toronto this year.

In Conclusion

In the end, Syracuse’s speed and skill finally earned the Crunch their first victory over the Toronto Marlies. They did it off a goal from a former member of the Toronto organization that the team acquired for free, a good performance from their starting keeper, and an empty net goal from a hometown kid who loves coming home and playing in front of his family and friends.

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