1
0
Despite late collapse, Syracuse clinches and first round bye and home ice in the second round.
UTI-5
SYR-4 (OT)
Max Lagace allowed five goals on 32 shots for the OT loss. Man, Syracuse seems like a club built for a deep AHL playoff run… except at one position where neither of the available options are really inspiring confidence.
First Period
1:13 SYR Ryfors (27), (Myers, Goncalves)
Second Period
1:52 UTI Hayes (3), (Russo, Talvite)
5:42 SYR Goncalves (13), (Barre-Boulet, Dumont)(PP)
11:20 SYR Barre-Boulet (24), (Ryfors, Carrick)
Third Period
3:40 UTI Stevens (15), (Schmelzer, Parent)(PP)
7:48 SYR Balcers (8), (Element)
16:51 UTI Nemec (12), (Laberge, Thompson)
18:12 UTI Clarke (25), (Thompson, Stevens)
Overtime
3:15 UTI Walsh (9), (Schmelzer, Parent)
Simon Ryfors, Alex Barre-Boulet, and Gage Goncalves were the game’s three stars. ABB finishes on 84 points, setting Syracuse’s single-season records for assists and points in the process. For the moment, he’s one point back of Tucson’s Michael Carcone for the scoring title, with Tucson playing later tonight. He and Darren Raddysh were named First Team AHL All Stars earlier this week.
You’d have loved the Crunch to have seen this thing out in the last four minutes of regulation, because they’d played the kind of game that was a fitting capstone to a hard stretch run to the postseason with prospects and veterans alike contributing to a strong effort. The good news is Rochester absolutely pee’ed it down the leg against Cleveland earlier in the night, which not only allowed Syracuse to clinch a first round bye, but also gives them the second seed and home ice advantage in the second round. Their opponent will hinge on Rochester’s game in Cleveland Sunday afternoon. If Rochester wins, they’ll leapfrog Utica but lose the tiebreaker with Syracuse on regulation wins. Anything less than two points and Utica will be Syracuse’s opponent (they also have the regulation win tiebreaker on Rochester) and the Americans will fall into the best of three gauntlet against Laval.
Box score from TheAHL.com.
