The week started at home hosting the Albany River Rats. The first two periods had little effort from the Crunch with Dan Fritsche posting the lone goal for the Crunch on a no-look shot that found the net. That seemed to build momentum as the good guys trailed 3-1 going into the third and Trevor Frischmon made it a one goal game with his second of the year from Fritsche. Picard tied it up with an assist from Frischmon. This new line of Frischmon, Fritsche and Picard is full of speed and energy. Neither team could find the back of the net or even the net as no shots were on goal for the full 5 minutes. The shootout was very exciting with Mayorov, Pelletier and the winner by Regner.
Friday saw the Providence Bruins come to the barn and neither team had much but the game was tied at one after the first with Sestito getting the goal on a total whiff. Looked an awful lot like Jason Williams shoot out goal for the Jackets last season but Tommy did not plan it. The boys did not fair so well in the shootout with the lone goal by once again Regner. This kid has spectacular moves in the skills competition and once he works out his defense he should be a good candidate for a PPQB specialist in the AHL (too early to tell if he an be a NHLer yet).
Saturday was a travel day to Hamilton to face the Bulldogs and the Crunch came out flat and were embarrassed with Picard getting the only goal for a final score of 5-1. LaCosta got the start and am not blaming him but Lalande is looking more and more like the starter here.
Lines for the games were,
Frischmon Fritsche Picard
Pelletier Aulin Sestito
Mayorov Lundbohm Smotherman
Ferguson McBride Mirasty/Miller
Roy Clitsome
Holden Reese
Sigalet Regner/Ratchuk
Lalande/LaCostra
Miller, Ratchuk and LaCosta saw action only on Saturday and Ratchuk and Roy were pair together and both were -3. Sigalet and Clitsome, with Holden and Reese staying paired together. This seemed to screw up the D badly for Saturday’s game as I would have put Ratchuk with Sigalet and left the other two pairings the same.
To end this week I thought I would do a who’s hot, who’s not.
Hot
Picard 7-5-12+3
Fritsche 3-8-11+1
Regner 2 for 2 in shootouts
Not
Smotherman 1-1-2 and -2 in 15 games
Aulin 1 assist in last 3 games
Mayorov 2-6-8 and -7 in 16 games
Sigalet 1-2-3 and -2 in 16 games
The Crunch have signed Bates Battaglia to a PTO today. He should be a good replacement for Derek MacKenzie as hopefully he sticks with the Jackets for the rest of the season.