HERSHEY SMOTHERED BY SYRACUSE

November 16, 2012

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Pierre-Cedric Labrie scored two goals to pace the Syracuse Crunch offense in a 6-1 victory over the HERSHEY BEARS on Friday night at the Onondaga County War Memorial at OnCenter.

The hosts took all of 59 seconds to find the back of the net when Richard Panik began a play through neutral ice.  His cross-ice pass found Philip-Michael Devos, who in turn put the puck in front for a redirection past BEARS starter Braden Holtby by Tyler Johnson.

Labrie struck for the first of his two on the night at 16:46, poking the rebound of Cory Conacher’s wraparound attempt underneath Holtby to give Syracuse a 2-0 edge.  Garrett Mitchell then fought Labrie to try to ignite a spark for the BEARS, but the Crunch took their lead into the intermission also with an 18-2 shot advantage.

HERSHEY came out with a good effort in the second frame, getting four quick shots on netminder Dustin Tokarski.  Holtby held the BEARS in the game until Brett Connolly’s power play goal at 14:28 and Mark Barberio’s strike 1:32 later gave the Crunch a 4-0 lead and ended Holtby’s night.

Dany Sabourin came on in relief, and the BEARS set out to work just under three minutes later.  Dmitry Orlov sprung Mike Carman on a breakaway from the Syracuse blue line, and Carman slid a low shot through Tokarski’s pads at 18:56 to put the BEARS on the board.  But Labrie’s second of the night with 37.6 seconds left in the frame put Syracuse back up by four goals at the intermission.  Danick Gauthier tallied with 3:06 remaining in a chippy third period on a feed from J.T. Wyman to round out the scoring.

Holtby took the loss and fell to 3-4-0 with 24 saves on 28 shots in 36 minutes of action, while Sabourin stopped 10 of 12 in exactly 24 minutes.  Tokarski turned aside 20 of 21 in improving to 6-1-1 on the season.  The BEARS finished the night 0-for-2 on the power play and 2-for-3 on the penalty kill.

HERSHEY returns home for a pair of games beginning tomorrow, November 17 with a 7:00 PM matchup against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.  Syracuse then visits GIANT Center on Sunday, November 18 at 5:00 PM.  Tickets for these games and all HERSHEY BEARS home games are on sale at the GIANT Center box office, by calling (717) 508-BEAR, or online at TicketMaster.com.

http://theahl.com/stats/official-game-report.php?game_id=1010068