The Syracuse Crunch defeated the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins 7-0 tonight at the War Memorial Arena to advance to the Calder Cup Final for the first time.
Philippe Paradis scored a hat trick and Cedrick Desjardins earned his second shutout of the Eastern Conference Finals to lead the Crunch over the Penguins.
After just over 16 minutes of scoreless play to open the game, the Crunch scored twice within a 52-second span to take a 2-0 lead over the Penguins. Vladislav Namestnikov grabbed the puck and put it in the net after Andrej Sustr‘s initial shot deflected off Jeff Zatkoff and into the air. Tyler Johnson also assisted on the Crunch’s first goal of the game.
Radko Gudas then doubled the Crunch lead at 16:56 of the first. J.T. Brown dropped the puck back to Gudas along the right boards. Gudas then fired a shot from the right point that went past Zatkoff on the blocker side. J.T. Wyman also earned an assist on the goal.
The Crunch scored a string of three goals in less than five minutes to close out the second period. Philippe Paradis wrapped around the net and stuffed the puck in on the glove side of Zatkoff with6:23 left in the middle frame. Mark Barberio and Sustr were credited with the assists on the play.
Dan Sexton extended Syracuse’s lead to 4-0 with a goal that was assisted by Philip-Michael Devos less than two minutes later. Ondrej Palat ended the period by tipping in a Sexton shot from the right circle with 17:58 gone by. Barberio picked up his second assist of the night on the Crunch’s fifth goal.
Read the rest at SyracuseCrunch.com.
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