Syracuse, NY (January 21, 2011) – Patrick Maroon scored his second goal in as many games against Rochester, but the Crunch managed just one goal for the third straight contest, falling to the Americans by a 2-1 final tonight in front of 5,812 fans at The Oncenter War Memorial Arena
Both teams came out looking to break out of prolonged slumps, with the Crunch 1-5-0-1 in their last seven and Rochester 0-5-1-0 in their last six games.
Rochester had the first great opportunity about eight minutes into the game when Bill Thomas intercepted a pass and broke in all alone on J.P. Levasseur. Thomas tried to go five-hole, but Leavasseur closed the door and denied him to keep the game scoreless
Mike Kostka finally got Rochester on the board with a power play marker when he sent a wrist shot on goal from the point that found its way through traffic and over the right shoulder of J.P. Levasseur at the 18:06 mark to make it a 1-0 game.
The score stayed that way until just over 12 minutes into the second stanza when P.J. Fenton barreled his way to the front of the Crunch net and stuffed in the rebound of an Eric Selleck shot to put Rochester ahead 2-0.
The Crunch got themselves back into the contest at the 6:06 mark of the third when Stefan Chaput found Maroon crashing the net and fed the 225-pound winger who powered the disk off of Jacob Markstrom and into the back of the net to cut the Crunch deficit to 2-1.
That goal proved all the Crunch could muster on Markstrom, who out-dueled his counterpart Levasseur for the win and made 35 saves on the night.
CRUNCHABLES: Patrick Maroon has two goals over his last five games, both against Rochester…After going 20-for-21 on the penalty kill in five games from January 8-18, the Crunch PK unit has given up four PP goals over the last two games (4-for-9)…Anaheim reassigned Eric Regan to Syracuse and the Crunch assigned Eric Lampe to Elmira yesterday.
Courtesy: Syracuse Crunch
