J.T. Wyman Photo by Linda Hamilton
Tonight’s Crunch/Senators game had pretty much everything. Old time hockey toughness, tons of goals, a dramatic late game comeback. Oh, and a goalie fight. A European goalie fight no less. Don Cherry would lose his shit.
This game was pretty ugly from the outset. Bingamton held a 5-0 lead through the first half of the game. That’s when Sens goalie Robin Lehner and Crunch goalie Riku Helenius met at center ice and, well… see for yourself.
Update: Clearer fight footage.
Ahhh, the goalie fight. So rare. So magical. It takes on a certain something extra when you get to see a Sweden/Finland battle play out right before your eyes.
Both goaltenders were ejected from the game and Dustin Tokarski stepped into net in relief. In hockey, we often see players drop the gloves as a way to fire up their teammates. Whether Riku intended his bout to get his teammates moving, it certainly did. Cory Conacher opened the scoring a minute after Helenius left the game.
It was all Syracuse from there with five more regulation goals scored by Mark Barberio, Brett Connolly, Ondrej Palat, and J.T. Wyman. Richard Panik sealed the deal with the OT winner.
Game Notes: J.T. Brown did not return after being injured in the first period. Tyler Johnson recorded three assists on the night. Binghamton had 80 PIMs and Syracuse with 72 PIMS. There were 8 fights in total in the game.
