Amerks, Snapped, Crackled, Crunched In Syracuse

The Rochester Americans dropped their third straight contest to the Syracuse Crunch this season, falling 6-1 tonight at the War Memorial at Oncenter. With the loss, Rochester has now fallen in six of its last seven games as it has yet to find a win against the Columbus Blue Jackets’ affiliate this season.. Syracuse was powered with three-point performances from Clay Wilson (2+1) and Maksim Mayorov (2+1) to earn first and second star honors, respectively. John Vigilante, the game’s third star, and Kirill Starkov each contributed with a goal and an assist as well. Dan LaCosta turned away 23 of 24 shots to earn the win in net. Karl Stewart scored Rochester’s lone goal, his second of the weekend, as Chris Beckford-Tseu made 29 saves in his third straight start between the pipes in the losing effort. Syracuse quickly opened the scoring just 17 seconds into the contest with Starkov’s first of the season. Trevor Frischmon and Andrey Plekhanov received the helpers on the play. The Crunch would take a 3-0 lead entering the second stanza with a pair of back-to-back goals from Wilson, one of which was on the powerplay. The hometown Crunch extended their lead to 5-0 with a pair of second-period powerplay tallies from Mayorov at 3:57 and 18:17 of the period, respectively. Syracuse finished the game going 3-for-9 on the powerplay as opposed to Rochester’s 1-for-9 conversion rate. Stewart finally put the Amerks on the board with his third of the season and second in two games at 6:24 of the final period. Rookie forwards Michal Repik and Shawn Matthias were each credited with assists on Rochester’s only goal of the night. Vigilante found the back of the net just over two minutes later to record his first goal of the season and secure the 6-1 victory for the Crunch. Recently acquired defenseman Riley Emmerson definitely made his presence felt tonight in his American Hockey League debut with the Amerks. The 6-foot-8, 248-pound hard nosed defenseman went toe-to-toe with Syracuse’s Jon Mirasty to quickly add 10 PIM to the Amerk record books. Mike Duco, the league’s second-place leader with 60 PIM, also dropped the gloves with Ryan Garlock of the Crunch. The oldest rivalry in the American Hockey League will be renewed on Sunday, October 26th as Rochester travels to the Giant Center to take on the Hershey Bears in a battle of the leagues oldest franchises. The 5:00 p.m. contest is the first of two meetings between the two teams and will be carried live on SportsRadio 1280 WHTK, whtk.com and AHL Live. Rochester was 1-1-0-0 in the season series a year ago and 180-199-53 all-time against the Bears. Hershey (5-1-0-0) is currently the top team in the East Division. Rochester returns home on Friday, October 31st for Halloween night matchup with the Toronto Marlies at The Blue Cross Arena. The 7:35pm faceoff is the first of six straight homes games for Rochester.