By Michael Wax
The Crunch picked up a much-needed sweep this past weekend, winning both their games against the Toronto Marlies on the road. After a 6-3 win on Sat, Jan. 6, they picked up a 4-3 OT win on Jan. 7.
Syracuse sits at 18-11-2-2, seven points behind the Cleveland Monsters for first in the North Division.
Before we get into what we saw this week, here is some admin:
Defensemen Sean Day, Declan Carlile, Jack Thompson, and Emil Lilleberg all saw call-ups this week. Day was the only one not to play before being re-assigned, but Carlile received positive reviews on his pairing with Darren Raddysh before also being re-assigned on Thursday. Thompson and Lilleberg took part in the Lightning's Saturday loss to Boston, each holding their own. Thompson has been re-assigned to the Crunch, while Lilleberg remains with the Lightning.
D Ryan Ogel was signed to and released from a PTO this week.
D Chris Harpur signed to a PTO on Thursday. He played both of the weekend games against the Marlies.
F Daniel Walker was re-assigned to the ECHL's Orlando Solar Bears.
Here are three things we noticed over this week's games from the Crunch:
We're Going Carrolling
Since signing his AHL contract a few weeks ago, Joe Carroll has struggled to find his footing for the Crunch. That changed with two massive games that saw him register six points and record two multi-goal performances.
Saturday was the first time that it seemed that Joe Carroll was comfortable in a Crunch uniform. On the power play, he had the first of two deflections on a shot from Gage Goncalves from the point, a shot that captain Gabriel Dumont would end up deflecting again to get the goal. The third period became a big one for the forward, as he scored two goals off of two-on-one rushes to give the Crunch the lead and then add an insurance marker.
The first one saw a ton of determination from Jack Finley to wrestle the puck away and start a two-on-one, which Carroll was the beneficiary of thanks to a great cross-ice pass. With the score at 3-2, Carroll would be the one to start the odd-man rush and take the shot himself to double the Crunch's lead.
Sunday saw more of the same, with Carroll scoring a power-play goal in the third period to give the Crunch a 3-2 lead and then providing the overtime winner off a faceoff win from Jack Finley to give the Crunch a victory. Carroll's performances would earn him the third star in the AHL on Saturday and the AHL's first star on Sunday.
Finally Finley
In a weekend that saw plenty of nice goals from the Crunch, the nicest goal belonged to Jack Finley.
The 2020 2nd round pick is still having a tough time adjusting to professional hockey in his second season, currently with two goals and seven points in 16 games in his sophomore campaign after just 12 goals and 21 points in 67 games in his first season. However, performances like this weekend's showcase his tremendous offensive potential and are part of why he was selected so highly in 2020.
Max Groshev gave the puck over to Finley in the neutral zone in what looked like a four-on-two for the Crunch. Finley would put Marlies' defender Max Lajoie in a spin cycle before firing the puck over the shoulder of goalie Keith Petruzzelli.
The goal wasn't the only nice part about Finley's weekend. He would pick up the primary assist on Maxim Groshev's goal on Sunday, although that point was more the result of a fantastic individual effort from Groshev. Finley would also pick up assists on both of Joe Carroll's goals in Sunday's OT win against the Marlies, putting together the first four-point weekend of his professional career.
Strength in Numbers
There's an old saying that if you have two number-one goaltenders, you have no number-one goaltender. But in a league like the AHL, where both of your goalies will play in a certain week, you'll need the best out of both if you're going to become a winning franchise. The Crunch got that in spades from Matt Tomkins and Hugo Alnefelt this weekend.
Tomkins started on Saturday and certainly put together a more impressive performance from a statistics standpoint. He faced 40 Marlie shots and would stop 37 en route to a big 6-3 win.
Alnefelt provided good goaltending differently in the Sunday matchup. While allowing three goals on 22 shots doesn't look great to the naked eye, he made a lot of key stops and kept the Crunch in the game throughout the overtime.
Having two solid goaltenders can be a big boost for a Crunch team that is still trying to find its identity both in goal and through its defensive core, especially with all of the recent changes to defense due to the big club's injuries.
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