Wilcox stops 48 in Crunch victory

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
December 7, 2016

Syracuse Crunch goaltender Adam Wilcox put on a show Wednesday in helping lead the Crunch to a 4-2 victory against Lehigh Valley at War Memorial

On a night that Syracuse head coach Benoit Groulx said the team played their “worst game of the year”, Wilcox proved to be a nearly impenetrable backstop, stopping 48 of 50 shots to set a career high. Matt Peca, Jake Dotchin, Matt Taormina and Yanni Gourde scored for the Crunch.

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But it was all about Wilcox, who was a big part of a perfect 5-for-5 penalty kill. Wilcox kept his team in the game, stopping 12 shots in the first period, 16 in the second and 20-of-21 he faced in the third period.

“I think we’ve got to give credit tonight to our goalie, obviously. He was our best player out there,” Groulx told the Syracuse Post Standard. “Our PK was phenomenal too. Other than that I thought it’s our worst game of the year. We got out-skated, out-competed, like out-played big time. I thought we were second on the puck all night long. They were skating better than us.”

Lehigh Valley took a first period lead at 11:57, but Peca answered that 32 seconds later while Dotchin put Syracuse in front 21 seconds after Peca scored. But the ice was clearly tilted in the Phantoms’ favor for most of the remainder of the game.

Lehigh Valley tied the game at 10:40 of the third before Taormina scored the winner with 2:35 remaining to ensure the effort put in by Wilcox would not go unrewarded.

“I try to stay the same throughout the whole game,” Wilcox told Bolt Prospects. “When you give up a goal, obviously you’re not happy with it. For me, it’s staying level-headed whether we’re up five goals, down five goals or a tie game. Like after (Taormina’s) goal, it’s obviously an emotional time and a big goal for us late in the game, so I just had to reset myself and make sure I was playing the same as I would otherwise.”

While Groulx gave plenty of worthy praise for Wilcox, he made it clear a better overall team effort is needed with two more home games, Friday a pair of games scheduled this weekend at home on Friday against Albany and Saturday against Utica.

“Our goalie kept us in the game and it’s good because we won,” Groulx said. “Turn the page and we’ve got to be better than this this weekend.”

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