SYRACUSE -- Jared Aulin recorded a goal and two assists, Mike Radja scored twice and Kevin Lalande made 31 saves as the Crunch exploded for four goals in the first period and never looked back, defeating the Binghamton Senators by a 5-1 final Saturday night in front of raucous crowd of 5,992 fans at the War Memorial at Oncenter.
Captain Derek MacKenzie started the scoring binge just three and a half minutes into the game when he corralled a pretty touch pass in the neutral zone from Tomas Kana, skated in down the right side and picked the top right corner over the glove of Andy Chiodo to give the Crunch a 1-0 lead and extend his personal point streak to eight straight games.
Just over five minutes later, the Crunch grabbed a 2-0 lead on the power play when Aulin slid a cross-ice feed to Radja camped out at the bottom of the right circle. Radja’s bid got a piece of Chiodo and trickled over the line for the goal.
Radja followed up that effort by scoring again two and a half minutes later on a pretty play set up by Aulin.
Mike Blunden worked the puck in the corner to Aulin, who made a strong move to the net and threaded a backhand pass through traffic to Radja as he was falling down. Radja received the pass on his backhand and pinpointed a one-timer to the top left corner of the cage to make it 3-0.
Dan Fritsche extended the Crunch’s lead to 4-0 when intercepted a cross-ice pass with Binghamton on the power play, skated in all alone on a breakaway and knifed a shot through the five-hole of Chiodo with 1:37 remaining in the first.
Lalande shined in the second period, turning aside a 15-shot barrage from the Binghamton attack.
The Senators finally broke through on the score sheet and ended Lalande’s shutout bid just under three minutes into the third stanza with a Josh Hennessy power play goal.
The score remained that way until Aulin cashed in for his third point of the game when his wrister from the slot beat Holt with one second left on the clock to seal the 5-1 victory.
CRUNCHABLES: This was the final meeting between these two teams until the Mirabito Outdoor Classic, the AHL’s first-ever outdoor game on February 20 at the New York State Fairgrounds…The Crunch power play has scored a goal in six straight games, going 6-for-27 (22.2%) over that span…Derek MacKenzie has 12 points (6g, 6a), over his last eight games…The Crunch and Binghamton are now tied 3-3 in the season series…Syracuse owns a 14-3-1-1 record against the B-Sens at home over the past five seasons…The Crunch are now 14-2-1-0 when scoring four or more goals.
Courtesy: Syracuse Crunch
