By Michael Wax
For the first time all season, the Crunch suffered a losing week. After a 4-1 win against the Hershey Bears on Friday, Dec. 8, the Crunch lost back-to-game games to the Utica Comets on Dec. 9 and 10.
Syracuse sits at 13-7-0-2, one point behind the Cleveland Monsters for first in the North Division.
Before we get into what we saw this week, here is some admin:
The Crunch signed F Joe Carroll to a two-year AHL contract on Wednesday. In his first season with the Crunch, Carroll has four goals and seven points in 17 games for Syracuse, already setting career highs.
D Declan Carlile hit 100 AHL games on Saturday.
F/D Daniel Walcott hit 400 AHL games on Saturday.
Here are three things we noticed over this week's games from the Crunch:
Teri, Teri Baby
Waltteri Merelä didn't have the best weekend defensively, but he was a force on Friday and was why the Crunch won this week. His power-play goal was due to him standing right in front and deflecting a Sean Day shot for his second AHL goal.
Merelä picked up his second point of the night with a secondary assist on the first pro goal for Tristan Allard, who displayed patience before sliding in a backhander. Finally, Merelä had the lead feed for Daniel Walcott on his ENG, giving Merelä a three-point night.
TA
Tristan Allard is a super interesting prospect. He struggled to produce in the QMJHL until his final season, where he scored 27 goals and 77 points in just 68 games. He signed with the Crunch at the end of last season and appeared in one playoff game, so this season is his first forte into professional hockey at only 21 years old. With three assists in 11 games coming into this weekend, Allard provided his first professional goal to give the Crunch a much-needed insurance marker.
As Emil Lilleberg had the puck at the point, Allard placed himself in front of the net to the glove side of Bears' goalie Hunter Shepard. After the rebound came loose, Allard waited out Shepard for his first AHL goal, adding a big celebration.
Teddy Toss
On Saturday, the Crunch did their annual Teddy Toss. An ECHL and AHL tradition (and hopefully soon an NHL trend), the Teddy Toss is used to send thousands of teddy bears to a local charity in Central New York. In the second period, Félix Robert set off the 13th annual Teddy Toss with a wrist shot in the second period.
This was a fun distraction in a tough weekend for the Crunch.
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