Amerks Impressive Again, Hammer Syracuse
By: Thad Brown
Updated: January 13, 2013
The
Rochester Americans defeated the Syracuse Crunch 4-1 at the War
Memorial at Oncenter on Saturday
night as four different players scored goals for the Amerks. With the
win, the Amerks are now 3-1-0-0 against the Crunch this season.
T.J. Brennan led the way for the Amerks with a goal and an assist, while Rick Schofield, Nick Tarnasky and Kevin Porter also scored for Rochester, which won for the third time in its last five games. Alex Biega added two assists and goaltender David Leggio, making his eighth consecutive start, turned aside 41 shots to earn the victory.
T.J. Brennan led the way for the Amerks with a goal and an assist, while Rick Schofield, Nick Tarnasky and Kevin Porter also scored for Rochester, which won for the third time in its last five games. Alex Biega added two assists and goaltender David Leggio, making his eighth consecutive start, turned aside 41 shots to earn the victory.
Brett Connolly scored the lone Syracuse goal while Crunch goaltender Riku Helenius made 27 saves.
The
teams traded scoring chances during a scoreless first period, with the
best chance coming off the stick of Amerks forward Maxime Legault, who
rang a shot off the crossbar.
The play went to video review by the referee, who confirmed that the puck never crossed the goal line.
Rochester
took a 1-0 lead at the 5:11 mark of the second period when Schofield,
who played for the Crunch last season, scored his fourth goal of the
year.
After Helenius stopped a shot by
Kevin Sundher, Schofield found the rebound in the slot and backhanded it
into the top left corner of the net.
Tarnaksy
gave the Amerks a 2-0 lead later in the second period when he scored on
the power play to extend his point streak to four games. Nick
Crawford
battled for the puck on the right half-wall and fed a pass to Tarnasky,
who skated in on Helenius and fired from the bottom of the face-off
circle through the goaltender's five-hole for his eighth of the season.
Brian Flynn also assisted on the goal.
Brett Connolly got Syracuse on the board at 6:34 of the third period. With the Crunch skating on a power play,
a scramble in front of the Amerks net resulted in Connolly knocking in a loose puck. Alex Killorn and Ondrej Palat collected the assists on the power play goal.
After
Syracuse cut the deficit in half, the Amerks responded with two goals
to give themselves a three-goal cushion and would hang on for the 4-1
win.
First, Porter beat Helenius for his 11th goal of the season off assists from Brennan and Biega.
Later in the period, with the
Amerks skating on a two-man advantage, Brennan blasted a one-timer over
the goaltender's left shoulder for his 14th
goal of the season. Mark Mancari and Luke Adam assisted on the insurance goal.
The
Amerks return to action on Wednesday, Jan. 16 as Rochester heads to the
southern tier for the sixth of eight meetings with the Binghamton
Senators this season. Game time is slated
for 7:05 p.m.
