1
0
Syracuse avoids a bigger disaster by stealing a point at Toronto.
SYR-3
TOR-4 (OT)
Max Lagace allowed four goals on 25 shots for the loss.
First Period
0:14 SYR Koepke (20), (Claesson, Fortier)
Second Period
2:05 SYR Raddysh (7), (Barre-Boulet, Goncalves)
8:37 TOR Robertson (10), (Der-Arguchintsev)
13:46 TOR Douglas (11), (unassisted)
17:46 TOR Steeves (21), (Seney, Blandisi)
Third Period
18:25 SYR Nash (3), (Barre-Boulet, Hudon)
Overtime
3:41 TOR Abramov (5), (Ho-Sang, Duszak)
Alex Barre-Boulet was the game’s third star. Cole Koepke notched a nice achievement also by getting the 20th goal of his rookie campaign.
Eleven games are left in the campaign and now we’re getting down to gut check time, which is made all the more confusing by this new AHL format where some teams play 68 games, some play 72, and some (like Syracuse) play 76. Everything’s based on points percentage now and roughly 3/4 of the league makes the postseason, so let’s try to drill down on what happened tonight:
Top five in the North Division make the postseason. Top three get a first round bye while the other two get a three game play-in round. Toronto jumped Syracuse into third in the division in points percentage, so Syracuse dropped into the play-in round with tonight’s loss. That’s bad. Sixth place Rochester lost really badly to Laval, though, so the Crunch gained a little ground on them. Both Syracuse and Rochester are playing the full 76, so the easiest way to get in might be to simply beat Rochester in points where the Crunch have a one point lead on the Americans with one game in hand. They also lead Belleville slightly and catching Toronto and Laval isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility. Every point in these final eleven games will become precious, though.
Box score from TheAHL.com.
