The Syracuse Crunch and Rochester Americans face off on Friday and Saturday night in the final weekend of the regular season in the American Hockey League. The games have a lot more meaning for the Syracuse Crunch who are in a battle with the Toronto for the fourth and final playoff spot in the Western Division. Two wins by the Amerks would be a great way to end a horrible season by knocking out their biggest rival in the league.
The chances of a good fight in one of these final two games isn’t very likely. The Crunch are on a mission to make the playoffs. The Amerks want to play the role of spoiler and also reach 30 wins on the season. If the Amerks get a good lead going in either of the games it’s the only way anything could possibly happen.
These two games could possibly be the best two games of the season played between the two teams.
This could very well be the last weekend in an Amerks uniform for players like Drew Larman, Stefan Meyer, David Shantz, Randall Gelech, Jacob Micflikier, and Riley Emmerson.
The only player I could possibly see coming back is Jacob Micflikier.
I know that plenty of fans would like to say good bye and move on to all of them.
Karl Stewart and Janis Sprukts are down to their last two games for the Amerks. Stewart has already signed a contract with a team in Germany and Sprukts has said that if he doesn’t get an NHL contract he’ll be heading to Europe.
The Crunch are 7-3-0-0 against the Amerks season, including a flawless 5-0-0-0 record on home ice. The Crunch have outscored the Amerks 34-16 in the previous 10 games between the two teams, the largest goal differential among Rochester’s North Division opponents this season. The Amerks, however, still maintain an 81-74-15 record lifetime against their intra-state foes. Rochester will complete the home-and-home series and its regular season on Saturday, April 11th with a 7:30 p.m. matchup against Syracuse at the War Memorial at Oncenter.
Friday will also be the Amerks’ annual Awards Night, as the team will announce the club’s 2008-09 award winners during a pregame ceremony. The awards include Team MVP, Rookie of the Year, Most Popular Player and Scoring Champion to name a few. The first 5,000 fans will take home an Amerks team photo, courtesy of Connors & Ferris. After the game, the players will be available in the lower atrium of The Blue Cross Arena for a full-team autograph session.
