Catching up with the Crunch

In the few days off from Ducks hockey, let’s spend some time and look out east at their AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch.

The Crunch are currently 11-10-2-1 and are in fourth place in their division behind the Hershey Bears, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the Norfolk Admirals. The record in the NHL goes by W-L-OTL-SOL by the way in case you were wondering about the four digit record. They sit in 12th place within the conference, which includes 15 teams. However, they have lost 4 of their last 6 games.

Their leader in points was just recently called up to the Ducks, Kyle Palmieri. He had 17 goals and 9 assists for 26 points in the 18 games he played with them. Right behind him in points is Patrick Maroon, who also has spent some time with the big club in Anaheim. In 23 games with Syracuse, he has 10 goals and 15 assists for 25 points. Some more familiar faces are among the leaders in points for the Crunch in Nick Bonino and Dan Sexton, both with 21 points, and Peter Holland with 16 points.

Their top defenseman are Bryan Rodney, Mathieu Carle and Kyle Cumiskey. All newcomers I might add. Of those three, I wouldn’t be able to tell you which guy would get a call first about coming up to the big club. But I’d lean towards Rodney or Cumiskey.

Their starting goaltender has played pretty well despite the record that hovers around .500. Goalie Iiro Tarkki, despite having a 7-7-1-1 record, has a pretty decent GAA of 2.67 and a very good save percentage of .921. Jeff Deslauriers has started about half as many games as Tarkki and has posted a 4-5-0-0 record with a terrible 4.44 GAA and an equally bad .858 save percentage.

Besides Palmieri, Maroon, Bonino, Holland and Carle, the only couple prospects that are on the Crunch’s roster are Defenseman Mat Clark and Left Winger Nicolas Deschamps. However, I wouldn’t put either of those two in the Ducks top ten prospects. On that subject, I would like to do a prospect watch series or something like a prospect update series and over my upcoming winter break that starts this Wednesday, I will possibly start that. Until then, good luck to the Crunch as they look to fight for a playoff spot, while the Ducks, well, fight for a top pick hahahahaha.