SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The Syracuse Crunch fell to the Utica Comets, 3-2, in the regular season finale tonight at the Upstate Medical University Arena.
Max Groshev opened scoring before Cooper Flinton tallied his first professional goal. Logan Brown tallied two assists on the night.
The Crunch complete the 2024-25 regular season third in the North Division with a 37-23-8-4 record. Syracuse and Utica split the 14-game season series going 7-6-1-0 each.
Crunch netminder Brandon Halverson stopped all 10 shots he faced before being relieved by Ethan Langenegger to start the second period. Langenegger went on to turn aside 23-of-26 shots. Jeremy Brodeur stopped 26-of-28 between the pipes for the Comets.
After a scoreless first period, the Crunch opened scoring with two goals in the middle frame. Groshev got the team on the board at the 5:55 mark when he fired a long wrister from the point. Brodeur caught a piece of it, but the puck still trickled across the goal line. Three minutes later, Flinton doubled the lead. He cut across the slot and backhanded a shot on goal. His first attempt was stopped, but he found his own rebound and sent it in. Utica stole one back late in the frame when Shane Lachance tipped in a shot from Luke Reid while on the man-advantage.
Utica rallied back with two goals in the third period to take the game. At 14:52, Topias Vilen centered a feed for Ryan Wheeler to send in from between the circles. Two minutes later, Xavier Parent netted the game-winner when he chipped in a rebound.
The Crunch are back in action on Friday when they begin the best-of-five North Division Semifinals series against the Rochester Americans with Game 1 on the road.
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