Rochester, N.Y. (WGR 550) – After blowing a 3-0 third period lead in Game 4, the Syracuse Crunch realized they couldn’t let the Rochester Americans use their speed to get into transition.
The Crunch slowed Game 5 down to a crawl, taking all time and space away from Rochester to win 5-2, and take the best-of-5 series, 3-2.
The game was basically a one-goal game with Syracuse caring about nothing but clogging up the ice. The Crunch had six days in-between games to devise a plan, and Devon Levi wishes there wasn’t that large of a break in-between games.
"I think it would’ve been nice to play right away right off that game with the momentum and everyone was feeling good, but you don’t control any of that. That’s just the luck of the draw," said Levi following Friday night's loss.
It only took Syracuse 9:43 to take a 2-0 lead on screen shots that hit Amerks in the leg and went into the net.
On the second goal, Gabriel Fortier was pushed into Levi by defenseman Joe Cecconi, taking him out of the play. Many wanted goaltender interference called, but the right call was made and the goal stood.
Rochester thought it had cut the lead in half when a puck went in off Justin Richards, but the goal was correctly waived off because Richards used a kicking motion to put the puck in.
Jeremy Davies showed his value to this team when he read a play perfectly, going to the net from the left point. His partner Cecconi found him with a perfect pass, and Davies directed the puck past Crunch goalie Brandon Halverson.
Led by Davies, the Amerks were starting to get some chances and some zone time. But in the second period, disaster struck.
Davies wound up having a violent collision at the blue line with Jordy Bellerive and he stayed down after taking a blow to the head. Head coach Seth Appert thought it was a missed call, and should’ve been a penalty on Bellerive. I couldn’t disagree more, though. If anything, it would be interference on Davies, because he was coming across and went in position to low bridge Bellerive initiating contact.
What we do agree on is once Davies went out, Rochester had nothing to break the defense being played by Syracuse. The Amerks only managed 18 shots on the game, and very few of them were dangerous. Appert says his group wasn’t getting frustrated, but other things were at play.
"They sit back in a 1-1-3, especially when they have the lead, and we were really a good forechecking team in Game 4. I didn’t think our forecheck came up with enough turnovers tonight," Appert said. "Even though we weren’t creating enough in the third, the vibe on the bench was, 'We’re going to tie this up and win this game.' But I go back to Davies, the best way to play against the 1-1-3 is to not let them get into the 1-1-3, which is forcing more turnovers with your gapping and you break the puck out with more efficiency. We just weren’t good enough at that without him in the last 30 minutes of that game."
If you saw the game, you'd know how right Appert is with how much the injury to Davies hurt the team.
Many thought Levi would be upset with being sent to Rochester, but it was quite the opposite.
"I didn’t think it would be this fun," the 22-year-old admitted. "It was one of the most fun things I’ve had to play for. It was just an unbelievable chapter."
Levi was playing well, but with the score 2-1, Rochester made two really bad plays.
Isak Rosen allowed Felix Robert to get under him at the blue line. Rosen is just not strong enough yet to hold off Robert, who took the puck away and led a 2-on-1 finished off by Waltteri Merela.
Jiri Kulich made a slick play on the power play, faking a shot from the right circle and zinging a pass to Michael Mersch at the crease, who made it a 3-2 score. However, that was as close as Rochester would get.
The killing blow for the Amerks came at 14:50 of the third period when Zach Metsa slipped and lost the puck. That produced another 2-on-1, and that made the score 4-2, Syracuse.
Both 2-on-1 goals were wide-open layups because the one Amerks defender back couldn’t take the pass away. Once that pass gets through, there’s nothing Levi can do. It’s such a simple concept. The defenseman takes the pass and the goalie takes the shooter, and Rochester played it as poorly as they possibly could on both goals.
Kulich scored 27 goals in the regular season and had none in five playoff games. The same thing happened to Jack Quinn two years ago.
I’ll say the same thing I did then: Kulich not scoring probably cost the Amerks the series. But Syracuse decided that the 19-year-old stud wasn’t going to beat them. They took his time and space away the whole series, and made sure to take him away on the power play.
As hard as it was for Quinn and it was for Kulich, I think both will be better players because of it. Quinn already is, and now Kulich knows how teams will play him and he’ll be ready.
Rochester also got no goals from Lukas Rousek, and just one goal from Linus Weissbach and Mason Jobst. That many players not scoring just isn’t a recipe for success.
Halverson is not Syracuse’s starting goalie. He only played 14 regular season games after being recalled from the ECHL. In the five playoff games, Halverson had a 2.23 goals-against average and a .914 save percentage.
The 28-year-old passed Hugo Alnefelt on the depth chart, and got thrown into action with Matt Tompkins up in Tampa Bay with the Lightning. Tompkins came back when the Lightning were eliminated, but Halverson was playing too well to take him out.
So what looked like a promising playoff run Rochester’s young players came to a screeching halt on Friday. It’s the Crunch that advance to play the Cleveland Monsters, not Rochester.
The one thing we got from these five games is Buffalo has some young players that never give up, and now know what they have to work on to take the next step.
There are openings with the big club, and it’s up to them to make the improvements that will make them NHL players.
