After being booed off the ice at the War Memorial on Wednesday, March 16 following a dismal 6-1 loss to the Albany Devils, the Syracuse Crunch bounced back for three impressive wins in a row.
On Friday, 21-year-old goalie Timo Pielmeier recorded his first pro shutout, making 30 saves to secure a hard-fought 1-0 win against the Toronto Marlies.
Rookie right wing Kyle Palmieri tallied the lone goal for the Crunch that night. With about eight minutes left to play, he crashed the net and banged home a rebound past an outstretched Ben Scrivens, who stopped 23 of 24 shots for the visitors. Forward Maxime Macenauer and defenseman Mat Clark assisted on the play.
Several Crunch player had publicly apologized for lack of effort in the mid-week game against Albany, but Palmieri put it all in perspective after Friday’s shutout.
“Obviously, we had a tough game Wednesday night,” Palmieri said, “but we just have to put it in the past and come out here and do our best to get two points. We have a lot of games at home this last part of the season, and we want to have our fans behind us and keep going and hopefully keep winning.”
The 19-year-old Long Island-bred winger certainly did his part to keep the team winning. On Saturday night, Palmieri scored a hat trick prompting a blizzard of fans’ hats to hit the ice after his third goal of the game. Patrick Maroon, Matt Belesky and Josh Green also lit the lamp for the Crunch as Coach Mark Holick’s skaters coasted to a 6-2 win over the visiting Charlotte Checkers.
Palmieri, who was Syracuse’s lone American Hockey League all-star this season, scored twice the following night in Pennsylvania, pacing the Crunch to a 5-2 victory over last year’s Calder Cup Champion Hershey Bears. Also scoring for Syracuse Sunday were Matt Kennedy, Nick Bonino and John Mitchell, while netminder J.P. Levassuer nailed down the win by turning away 30 of 32 shots by the Bears.
Over the last three games, the white-hot Palmieri has notched six goals and an assist and now leads the club with 20 goals in 58 contests this season.
The Crunch has eleven games left in its 2010-11 season, six of which will be played at home.
The team busses to Binghamton Wednesday, March 23, before returning to the War Memorial at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 25 and 26, to face off against the Albany Devils and the Rochester Amerks, respectively. Ticket prices range between $13 and $22; 473-4444; syracusecrunch.com.
