Crunch extend home streak, defeat Utica in shootout

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
December 10, 2016

The Syracuse Crunch picked up at least a point in a tenth consecutive home game, defeating Utica 4-3 in a shootout at War Memorial on Saturday.

Kristers Gudlevskis stopped 31 shots to record the victory while Ben Thomas had his first goal as a professional. Matt Taromina and Henri Ikonen also scored for the Crunch. Tanner Richard and Cory Conacher converted in the shootout

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The Crunch twice had to rally from behind, gave up a late tying goal and then rallied from behind in the shootout to improve to 15-6-0-2 on the season.

For the second consecutive night the Crunch fell behind in the first period but tied the game on Ikonen’s first of the season at 13:20 of the first period.
Utica regained the lead at 5:03 of the second period but Thomas- who scored for Syracuse at the end of last season while on a amateur tryout agreement – answered that less than two minutes later with his first professional goal at 7:01 to pull Syracuse even once again.

Taromina scored his eighth of the season, notching a shorthanded goal just 12 seconds in to the third period. Utica tied the game with 4:58 left to send it to overtime before the Crunch won the shootout, 2-1, with Richard picking up the game-deciding goal.

“”I think any time you can go Friday-Saturday with four points, I think you’re going to call it a good weekend,” Richard told the BoltProspects.com. “I mean, was it the most beautiful 120 minutes? Probably not. But at the end of the day it’s four points that we’re taking in the bank in division games. We’ll go over video, go over what we didn’t do well, and keep moving forward and go for the next two points”

The weekend sweep of games finished off a perfect three-game homestand for the Crunch, which will be off until Friday to start a three-in-three weekend at Hartford.

It’s a very good week for us, obviously,” Crunch head coach Benoit Groulx told . “Tonight we battled hard. It was our fifth game in eight days with some previous travel in St. John’s, so we had to battle hard last night and battle hard again against a very competitive Utica team. My hat’s off to our players.”