Crunch keep composure, rally for Game 7 victory to advance to conference finals

By Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
May 17, 2017

Down, never out.

Now the Syracuse Crunch are moving on.

Matthew Peca notched the third-period winning goal to lift the Crunch to a 6-3 victory on Wednesday against the Toronto Marlies in Game 7 of the North Division finals.

Syracuse moves on to the Eastern Conference finals for the second time as the Lightning affiliate. The Crunch will face the Providence Bruins, which knocked off Hershey in Game 7, starting Friday in Providence.

The Crunch scored five unanswered goals to storm back led by Cory Conacher, Yanni Gourde, Matt Taormina.and Peca, who all finished with a goal and an assist each. Mike McKenna finished with 14 saves to pick up the victory.

The Crunch opened the scoring at 6:26 of the first period with his third goal of the playoffs as he deflected a one-timer off the stick of defenseman Ben Thomas.

But Toronto stormed back late in the first, scoring twice in the span of 80 seconds on goals by Seth Griffith at 17:37 and Brendan Leipsic at 18:57 to carry a lead in to the intermission. The Marlies increased the lead to 3-1 halfway through the second period on a goal by Andreas Johnsson at 11:03 and things started to look bleak.

”It’s all about keeping your calm,’’ Syracuse head coach Ben Groulx said. “You have to play a full 60 minutes and I think that’s a lesson we learned in Toronto when we were up 3-2 (in Game 3) with two minutes to play and they scored three goals. So I liked the composure we had on our bench tonight, guys always believed.’’

Believing is one thing. Doing it is another.

And the Crunch went out and put that belief in to action.

Taormina, named the Defenseman of the Year in the AHL during the regular season, started the comeback when he cut down the backdoor and chipped in a cross-ice pass from Peca to make it 3-2 at 13:30. Then with Steve Oleksy in the penalty box for an interference call, Adam Erne tipped a shot from Conacher to knot the game at 3-3 with 4:46 left in the second period and send the game in to the intermission tied.

”It’s nice at the end of the period to be able to do that,’’ Erne said. “I don’t think we ever counted ourselves out and we had a lot of character. I think we showed that.’’

The momentum from the end of the second period carried over in to the third right from the opening faceoff as Jake Dotchin sent Peca in on a breakaway to give Syracuse a 4-3 lead just eight seconds in to the final period.

”It felt like it was just a little faceoff coverage breakdown on their part,’’ Peca said. “Usually that other center is glued to you, but somehow I lost him and Jake just made an awesome pass through a couple of sticks and I was able to skate in with a lot of room.’’

While momentum fully swung in the favor of the Crunch, it didn’t just happen. After falling behind in the first period on the two late Toronto goals, Syracuse took over the game from a territorial standpoint. Over the course of the final two periods, the Crunch held the Marlies to seven shots on goal, just two in the second period.

”The mood was fine, it was consistent the whole game,’’ said Conacher, who scored the insurance goal with 1:41 left in the third. “You can’t go on a roller coaster of emotions, you have to keep an even keel. I actually had a good feeling the whole game, even when we were down 3-1, we were still making plays. Maybe a couple of bounces didn’t go our way and that’s why they were up 3-1. All the guys, especially the leadership group, did a good job of getting everybody together and making sure we were on our game for the full 60 minutes and that’s what we did.’’

Full game highlights from Syracuse Crunch

Series schedule

Game 1 — Syracuse 3, Toronto 1 (Syracuse leads series 1-0)

Game 2 — Syracuse 8, Toronto 5 (Syracuse leads series 2-0)

Game 3 — Toronto 5, Syracuse 3 (Syracuse leads series 2-1)

Game 4 — Toronto 3, Syracuse 2 (Series tied 2-2)

Game 5 — Syracuse 5, Toronto 1 (Syracuse leads series 3-2)

Game 6 — Toronto 2, Syracuse 1 (Series tied 3-3)

Game 7 — Syracuse 6, Toronto 3. (S)yracuse wins series 4-3