Toronto Marlies Fall To Syracuse Crunch In First Half Of Home-And-Home

The Toronto Marlies fell 3-2 to the Syracuse Crunch on Friday night.

Syracuse opened the scoring at 11:15 of the first period with a goal from their captain, Gabriel Dumont. Jonny Tychonick netted his first career AHL goal with less than 20 seconds remaining in the frame to tie the game at one.

In the second, Daniel Walcott gave the Crunch their lead back with a goal at 8:32.

In the third period, Kyle Clifford tied the game at 2 7:25 in to the final frame. But, Gabriel Dumont scored his 2nd of the game at 13:33 to send the Crunch home with a victory.

The two teams meet again on Saturday in Toronto. Puck drop is at 4:00pm on the Toronto Maple Leafs App, AHLTV and NHL Network.

SCORING SUMMARY
Toronto: J. Tychonick (1) (Z. Solow, K. Clifford), K. Clifford (9) (J. Blandisi)
Goaltender: D. Hildeby (29/32) L

Syracuse: G. Dumont (12) (C. Koepke, D. Stephens), D. Walcott (12) (M. Groshev, T. Allard), G. Dumont (13) PP (G. Goncalves, A. Barre-Boulet)
Goaltender: H. Alnefelt (28/30) W

ON THE SCORESHEET

• Jonny Tychonick put the Marlies on the board at 19:42 of the first period. This was his first career AHL goal. He has 41 points (6 goals, 35 assists) in 45 games with the Newfoundland Growlers (ECHL).
• Kyle Clifford scored at 7:25 of the third period and earlier had the secondary assist on Tychonick’s first period goal. He has 22 points (9 goals, 13 assists) in 41 games this season.
• Zach Solow registered the primary assist on Tychonick’s first period goal. He has 17 points (7 goals, 10 assists) in 46 games this season.
• Joseph Blandisi had the lone assist on Clifford’s third period goal. He has points (5-2-7) in four consecutive games. Blandisi is tied for sixth overall in points (19-28-47).
• Dennis Hildeby stopped 29 of 32 shots he faced.

TEAM NOTES

• The Marlies went 2-for-3 on the penalty kill and 0-for-3 on the power play. Toronto is 9-10-4-0 when not scoring on the power play and 11-8-7-1 when allowing a goal on the penalty kill.
• Syracuse had a 32-30 edge in shots in all situations. Kieffer Bellows and Alex Steeves led the Marlies with five shots on goal. Toronto is 8-6-3-0 when outshot by their opponent.
• Toronto is 9-12-7-2 against North Division opponents and are 0-4-1-0 against the Crunch this season.

RECORD WHEN

Not scoring first                                  2-14-2-0
Tied after 1^st                                        8-6-5-2
Trailing after 2^nd                                  2-13-4-1
On the road                                        14-8-3-2
February                                              5-3-3-1
Friday                                                  7-4-1-1

MARLIES LEADERS *Amongst active AHL players

Goals               22 (K. Bellows)
Assists            28 (J. Blandisi)
Points              47 (J. Blandisi)
PPG                 7 (J. Blandisi)
Shots               150 (K. Bellows)
+/-                    +18 (J. Blandisi, T. Miller)
PIMS                93 (Z. Solow)

HEAD COACH JOHN GRUDEN

On tonight’s game:

We played well.  Other than the first few minutes, I thought we got our legs and we started to do somethings that we needed to do to give ourselves a chance. Scored the big goal in the third and we had a lot of momentum and it got taken away with those penalties. One we’ll kill off. The second one was a bad penalty, it can’t happen and it cost us.

UPCOMING GAMES:*All times Eastern Standard Time

March 2 vs. Syracuse – 4:00 p.m.
March 6 vs. Belleville – 7:00 p.m.
March 8 at Utica – 7:00 p.m.
March 9 at Springfield – 7:05 p.m.
March 15 at Rochester – 7:05 p.m.

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