The Amerks failed to win the game but getting one out of two points against a team not in your conference is better than not getting anything at all.  Rochester had a lot of chances to score goals throughout the second period but continued to hit the posts and give the Crunch too much room and they were able to succeed.  The Amerks had a lead until halfway through the third period Peter Holland scored the tying goal and then Dan Sexton scored the eventual game winner in the shootout.

This game wasn’t lost because the Amerks were without Marcus Foligno, Corey Tropp and Travis Turnbull but because they were inconsistent the whole game.  Those three players certainly would have helped but the game wasn’t lost due to their absence.

Igor Gongalsky and Kyle Kurtz had the only fight of the game at 5:06 of the first period.  There weren’t many punches thrown but the two certainly gave it a shot against each other.  You can see the video here:

Back to the game..

Shaone Morrisonn, Nick Crawford and Brayden McNabb scored the three goals for the Amerks in the 4-3 loss.  Is that a good thing or bad thing that it was all defensemen who scored?  It’s a good thing that players did score but a bad thing the offense wasn’t able to bury a puck in the net.

Morrisonn scored the first goal of the game deflecting a shot by Colin Stuart from the face off circle.  Evan Rankin also got an assist on the play winning a battle next to the Crunch net which allowed Stuart to circle around the outside.

Dan Sexton centered a pass from behind the Amerks net to Luca Caputi who was all alone in front of the net and had no problem putting it past David Leggio.

Nick Crawford put the Amerks up 2-1 at 7:08 of the second period thanks to a cross ice pass from Phil Varone.  Crawford had time to wind up his shot and scored top shelf.

The Amerks went up 3-1 when Brayden McNabb scored at 13:17 of the second period from the point with a great slap shot.  Just prior to the goal being scored McNabb had battled a Crunch player in the Amerks end and took the puck away which lead to the offensive rush.  The Amerks had been putting solid pressure on the Crunch for a few minutes before the goal was scored and hit at least four posts and a fifth missed the net when it shouldn’t have.  This series of events could’ve been the turning point of the game to build a lead but they were not able to.

There was only 28 seconds left in the second period when Kyle Cumiskey scored to make it a 3-2 game heading into the third period.  Jean-Francois Jacques did a great job pulling Joe Finley across the front of the net which screened Leggio and Cumiskey was able to score with a high shot.  The Crunch tied the game 3-3 when Jean-Francois Jacques and Peter Holland carried the puck down ice on a two on one against Joe Finley and Holland was able to easily score off a pass from Jacques.

And then in the shootout Dan Sexton was the only player to score a goal and the Crunch won the game 4-3.

You can hear Ron Rolston’s postgame press conference here thanks to Rob Sanderson from Drop the Puck Radio:

Rolston Postgame Press Conference March 21, 2012

Shootout video:

That’s possibly it until Friday when the Amerks host the Binghamton Senators at 7:35pm at the War Memorial.