Of its first 23 games in the 2010-11 American Hockey league season, the Syracuse Crunch have had 17 games decided by one goal.
While the close calls can be encouraging, the bad news is that of those 17 decisions just six have gone in favor of the Crunch.
One came Sunday Dec. 5, in Charlotte, N.C. as Crunch center Stefan Chaput (sha-POO) tallied the game-winning goal with 2:23 left to play against his former team, the Charlotte Checkers, for a 3-2 victory. Left wing Patrick Maroon added a goal and an assist and center Trevor Smith scored his third goal in two games.
Smith had netted a pair of goals Friday, Dec. 3, against the Rochester Amerks at the Blue Cross Arena, but the Crunch dropped that one – you guessed it! – by one goal, 6-5.
In Rochester, Crunch Coach Mark Holick lifted rookie goalie Timo Pielmeier after the German-born netminder allowed three goals on nine shots. Veteran J.P. Levasseur didn’t do much better, allowing three more Amerk scores on just 13 shots. At least the Crunch offense was firing on all cylinders, taking 41 shots at Amerks goalie Jacob Markstrom, who rejected 36 of them.
On Sunday in North Carolina, Pielmeier returned to his stellar self between the pipes, turning away 34 of 36 shots and was named the game’s first star for his winning effort.
Chaput, the hero of the third period, started the season with Charlotte but was traded along with Matt Kennedy from the Carolina organization to the Anaheim organization in exchange for Ryan Carter on Nov. 23.
It looked as if Sunday’s game was headed to overtime until Chaput swatted in a rebound from a Nicolas Deschamps shot during a pileup in front of the cage with 2:23 left in regulation. Charlotte pulled goalie Justin Pogge for an extra attacker with just more than a minute to play, but the Crunch held on for the win.
Syracuse returns home to War Memorial at 7:30 Friday, Dec. 10, to take on the last-place Adirondack Phantoms, and will face off here against the Binghamton Senators at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11. Ticket prices range between $13 and $22; 473-4444; syracusecrunch.com.
