Aulie, Keith

Syracuse meets the post-lockout bump in the road.

SYR-1
RCH-4

Dustin Tokarski allowed 4 goals on 27 shots for the loss.

First Period
RCH Mancari, (11) (Porter, Sundher), 14:17

Second Period
RCH Flynn, (13) (Adam, Crawford), 4:41
RCH Rankin, (9) (Schofield, Varone), 7:05
SYR Nightingale, (1) (Johnson, Palat), 16:31

Third Period
RCH Varone, (4) (Biega, Schofield), 14:14

Chemistry in hockey can be a weird thing. There are plenty of examples of teams that weather losing a key player and continue to play well. But, in the case of the Crunch, they're dealing with losing Keith Aulie, Cory Conacher, and P.C. Labrie to Tampa Bay, Taormina being down with an injury right now, and Richard Panik on a three game suspension. Clearly it was too much to overcome tonight as the team struggles to develop continuity. Even once Panik and Taormina return, it's a tall task to try to replace a defenseman with NHL experience, the reigning AHL MVP, and an emotional and physical leader like Nacho. Fans of the Lightning farm team have been a little spoiled over the last year plus and these next few weeks are going to be a little tough as Syracuse works through the changes. It'll settle down eventually. Jon Cooper's too good a coach not to get it settled down and back on track. However, be aware, this isn't going to be quite the same juggernaut it was moving forward.

Syracuse plays Lake Erie tomorrow while the big boys get going against Washington.

Box score from TheAHL.com.

By Jeremy Houghtaling

It was a night of firsts for the Syracuse Crunch.

Vladislav Namestnikov notched his first professional goal and Cory Conacher registered his first Gordie Howe hat trick Saturday at the Onondaga County War Memorial.

But unfortunately for the Crunch, the firsts didn't stop there.

The St. John's IceCaps registered their first victory of the year after trailing at the first intermission, as the Crunch blew a 4-0 lead in a 5-4 overtime loss.

"I wish I was a little happier about it," Conacher said of his achievement. "Maybe sometime down the road I can get it and get a victory out of it, too."

By Jeremy Houghtaling

It starts with the term "shutdown defenseman."

After that, Keith Aulie rattles off the rest of his responsibilities, memorized not in a mirror but through repetition on the ice.

"I try to go out there, play hard, finish my hits, make my first passes, be tough for their forwards to play against, kill penalties, and be consistent back there," Aulie said before taking a breath.

Likely set to at least challenge for a spot on the Tampa Bay Lightning blueline this season, Aulie has taken his talents to the Syracuse Crunch during the NHL lockout. A team that has been near the top of the Eastern Conference in points and penalty minute leaderboard all season, the Crunch welcomed the 6-6, 229-pounder’s ability to log substantial ice time.

By Jeremy Houghtaling

One night after coming back from a three-goal deficit to salvage a point in a shootout loss, the Syracuse Crunch again put themselves in a hole early.

The Crunch allowed the Wilkes-Barre Penguins to score on a power play less than four minutes into the game, and despite briefly tying the game, fell 3-2 at the Onondaga County War Memorial Saturday.

"There's a lot of mental mistakes, something that's uncharacteristic of our team," Syracuse forward Tyler Johnson said. "Sometimes we battled hard, and sometimes we didn't. We just weren't ourselves and we've got to fix that."

Crunch squash Hamilton.

HAM-1
SYR-5

Riku Helenius allowed just 1 goal on 20 shots for the victory.

First Period
SYR Palat, (3) (Barberio, Johnson), 0:26
SYR Connolly, (8) (Killorn, Johnson), 7:08 (PP)
SYR Taormina, (3) (Conacher, Brown), 13:42 (PP)
HAM Palushaj, (7) (Beaulieu, Leblanc), 19:42

Second Period
NO SCORING

Third Period
SYR Killorn, (4) (Palat, Barberio), 6:28
SYR Labrie, (4) (Connolly, Korobov), 11:08

Brett Connolly, Ondrej Palat, and Alex Killorn were the three stars of the game.

Don't look now, but Palat has snuck past teammate Dmitri Korobov into the top spot in the league in +/- at +17. Tyler Johnson, who still leads the league in goal scoring, is lingering in a tie for third in the league at +14.Richard Panik and Radko Gudas are also in the top-20 in the league in the statistic.

Syracuse gave some rough treatment to former Lightning farmhand Cedrick Desjardins, running up a 42-20 shot advantage en route to pinning 5 goals on him. When you score 26 seconds into a game and swarm to a 3-0 lead within the first 14 minutes, it's safe to say you were ready to go at puck drop.

Keith Aulie (pictured) was back in the lineup for Syracuse for the first time since late October. The big d-man was +2 with 3 shots on goal.

Syracuse will move on to face Adirondack tomorrow night.

Box score from TheAHL.com.