Daniel Walcott got the ball rolling for his team and the Syracuse Crunch defeated the Laval Rocket by a score of 4-1, Friday evening at Place Bell.
The Montreal Canadiens’ farm club experienced one of its worst outings of the season, seeing its three-game winning streak come to an end. He also slipped from first place in the North Division of the American Hockey League.
The Syracuse squad, for its part, played its intense and hermetic style wonderfully to sign a first victory in five clashes against the Rocket (18-9-2) this season.
Tyler Wotherspoon scored his first goal of the campaign for Laval, but the damage had already been done. Connor Hughes stopped 18 of 22 shots thrown his way in a losing cause.
Milo Roelens, Roman Schmidt and Jack Finley also scored for the Crunch (12-9-7), who have won three of their last four games. Matt Tomkins made 22 saves.
Hughes was defending the Rocket cage due to the Habs’ recall of Jakub Dobes earlier Friday. Forward Brandon Gignac returned to the game, but left the game in the second period and did not return.
The two section rivals will battle it out again on Saturday afternoon.
Little intensity
The Christmas break seemed to have slowed both teams down in the first half, but the visitors still managed to fare better.
Maxim Groshev prevented a disallowed clearance by beating Wotherspoon and sending the puck toward the net. Hughes pushed it back to the slot, where Walcott took the opportunity to open the scoring.
The Rocket could have slowed down the momentum of their opponents thanks to a numerical advantage at the end of the period, but the timing was not on point.
The Crunch set the tone in the second period by applying pressure in enemy territory and was rewarded with his second goal of the game. Joël Teasdale missed the target by turning, but the disc returned to the left mouth of Hughes’ net. Roelens, who had been forgotten, found a small gap to deceive the vigilance of the goalkeeper.
Hughes tried to do his part to revive his teammates, pulling out the mitt at the expense of Lucas Edmonds, midway through the second period, but Joël Bouchard’s men nevertheless increased their lead.
Following a faceoff in the offensive zone, Schmidt took a shot from the right point. The puck bounced across the ice before surprising Hughes, who had his vision obscured by several players in front of him.
Looking for a spark, the Rocket got one from an unusual candidate, midway through the final third. Wotherspoon beat Tomkins to give the fans hope, but the celebrations only lasted 72 seconds, while Finley restored a three-goal lead to his team.
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