Syracuse, NY - The Syracuse Crunch defeated the Norfolk Admirals 3-2 in a shootout tonight at the War Memorial Arena.
Crunch shooters JT Wyman, Ondrej Palat, Jared Nightingale and Richard Panik scored in the tie-breaking drill, while Crunch netminder Dustin Tokarski stopped two of four Norfolk shooters to improve the club's record to 24-7-2-3 overall and 8-4-2-1 at home.
Kyle Palmieri led the Admirals to a 2-0 advantage on the strength of two power-play tallies in the second period. The first came 2:23 into the middle stanza when Palmieri's shot from the right point, assisted by Peter Holland, got past Tokarski. Palmieri beat Tokarski glove side from the slot for his second tally at the 7:34 mark of the second period.
Danick Gauthier scored his fourth goal of the season to bring the Crunch within one with 4:03 to play in the middle stanza. Gauthier one-timed a drop pass from Cory Conacher to beat Admirals goaltender Frederik Andersen. Alex Killorn picked up the secondary assist, which brings his current point streak to four games.
Pierre-Cedric Labrie tied the game when he pushed the rebound of Dmitry Korobov shot past Andersen with 6:44 to play in regulation. Labrie's goal evened the score 2-2 and would ultimately send the game into overtime.
CRUNACHABLES: Danick Gauthier has a goal in two consecutive games… This is the first time the Crunch have won a shootout this season…Dustin Tokarski has won his last seven starts…Twenty three shots on goal in the third ties a season high for most shots in a period previously set at Bridgeport (12/9) and sets a season high at the War Memorial.
