SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Despite firing 43 shots on net, the Syracuse Crunch were only able to get one past Andrey Makarov in a 5-1 loss to the Rochester Americans tonight at the War Memorial Arena.
After Rochester opened scoring late in the first period, Jonathan Drouin netted his ninth goal in his last nine games early in the second. However, the Americans continued on a four-goal run to down the Crunch for the seventh time this season and take the 10-game season series.
Crunch goaltender Adam Wilcox turned aside 27 shots in defeat. His counterpart, Makarov, earned the win with 42 saves. The penalty kill unit stopped both of Rochester’s power play opportunities, while Syracuse converted on 1-of-5 man-advantages.
With 49 seconds remaining in the opening frame, Eric O’Dell got a stick on Spiro Goulakos’s shot from the point and redirected it past Wilcox to put Rochester on the board. Evan Rodrigues recorded the secondary helper.
At the 3:39 mark of the second, Drouin lit the lamp for Syracuse with a goal in his fifth consecutive game. While on the power play, he beat the netminder glove side with a wrister from the right circle. Matthew Peca and Matt Taormina tallied the assists.
Rochester took back control of the game two minutes later and went on to build a 3-1 lead before the second intermission. At 6:02, Justin Bailey scored off a feed from Michael Sdao. Matt Donovan picked up a point on the equalizer. Halfway through the middle frame, Goulakos potted his first of the season from the slot.
The Americans added two more in the third period to secure a victory over the Crunch. Bailey scored his second of the contest off a centering pass from Cole Schneider at the 15:19 mark before Nick Baptiste added an empty net tally with 1:11 remaining in the game.
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