CRUNCH BEGINS SEASON 31

The Syracuse Crunch open their 31st season in the AHL tonight with an away contest against the Utica Comets at the Adirondack Bank Center.

Syracuse enters the season after posting a 1-1 record in a two-game preseason that included a win over the Comets last Friday.

The Comets played just one preseason game before the 2024-25 season.

LAST SEASON

The Crunch finished the 2023-24 season with a record of 39-24-4-5. They amassed 87 points and finished third in the North Division, one point behind the division leader.

Syracuse earned its first Calder Cup playoff series victory in six years with a five-game victory over the Rochester Americans in the North Division semifinals. The Crunch were defeated by the Cleveland Monsters in the North Division finals.

Explore the CRUNCH

Crunch’s opening night roster consists of 28 players – two goalies, eight defensemen and 18 forwards.

Syracuse has just 10 starters from the team that finished third in the North Division last season. Gage Goncalveswho led the team with 58 points (13g, 45a) in 2023-24, is one such returner in 2024-25. The 2024 AHL All-Star has 145 points in 212 Crunch games since 2020-21. He is one of 13 players to reach 100 assists in the Crunch; His 102 assists are just outside the top 10 in team history.

The addition of free agents will help strengthen the roster. Tobie Bisson, Steven Santini And Derrick Pouliot round out a strong group of defenders. Jesse Ylonenwho spent all of last year with Montreal will provide the goals on offense. In his final AHL stint with Laval in the 2022-23 season, he scored 32 points in 39 games.

CRUNCH MVP RETURNS

defender Declan Carlilewho was named the 2023-24 Crunch team MVP at the end of last year’s regular season, returns to Syracuse for his third season.

The 24-year-old workhorse blueliner appeared in 61 games for the Crunch, scoring 27 points (7g, 20a). He then scored five points in eight playoff games. His only playoff goal was the opening goal in Game 5 at Rochester in the North Division semifinals.

In 140 AHL games with the Crunch, Carlile had accumulated 40 points (16g, 38a) and a plus-40 rating.

Carlile, who went undrafted out of Merrimack College, also made his NHL debut for the Lightning on January 4, 2024.

Consistent leadership

Despite suffering injuries early in the season, the Crunch return a solid leadership team for the 2024-25 season. captain Gabriel Dumont wears the Captain’s “C” for the fourth consecutive year and the Crunch for the fifth time overall. Dumont is the first captain in Crunch history to receive this award in five seasons.

Deputy Captain Daniel Walcott– also unavailable for the start of the season due to injury – returns for the 10th Crunch season, more than any other player in team history. Walcott, who won the Yanick Dupre Memorial Award as the AHL’s Community Man of the Year last season, has worn an “A” on his sweater in some form every season since 2017-18.

Gabe Fortier finished last season as a permanent assistant captain. He was also injured at the start of the season and is officially on the Lightning’s injured list. Players with NHL contracts cannot be assigned to the AHL while injured.

With the three returning captains unavailable, head coach Joel Bouchard made the announcement Declan Carlile, Max Crozier And Steven Santini will serve as alternate captains at the start of the season.

GOALKEEPING TANDEM

Brandon Halverson And Matt Tomkins make up the Crunch’s goalkeeping duo this season.

Halverson, 28, went 7-3-3 with a 2.18 goals-against average and .913 save percentage in 14 regular-season games for the Crunch. He started seven of the Crunch’s eight playoff games and went 3-4, with a 2.19 goals-against average and .916 save percentage.

Tomkins, 30, is in his second season with the organization after splitting time between the Lightning and Crunch last season. For the Crunch in the 2023-24 season, he posted a record of 15-12-2, which corresponds to a goals-against average of 2.53 and a save percentage of 0.904.

FLASHBACK

Tonight marks the second straight season the Crunch open their campaign against the Comets. Last year, the Crunch’s season-opening trip across the Thruway ended with a 4-3 overtime victory. Felix Robert scored the winning goal at 4:45 of overtime, giving the Crunch a 1-0-0-0 start.

Only eight Crunch players who skated in this game are on the opening squad of the Crunch season. Lucas Edmonds is the lone scorer from that game, returning to the Crunch roster in 2024-25.

None of the current Crunch goaltenders were on the roster for last year’s opener.

The win moved Crunch to 13-10-2-2 (with three ties) in season opening games. They are 6-6-2-2 in 16 season-opening games played on the road.

In search of comets

The Comets failed to qualify for the 2023-24 Calder Cup Playoffs for the first time in three seasons since their merger with the New Jersey Devils prior to the 2021-22 season. They posted a record of 32-29-5-6 and finished with 75 points, five points out of the final playoff spot in the North Division.

Utica went 15-15-1-5 at the Adirondack Bank Center in 2023-24. The Comets were better on the road, going 17-14-4-1 outside of Utica.

Utica has 14 forwards on its opening roster who played in at least one Comets game last year. They overhauled the blueline with just two returns while both goaltenders saw the Utica fold in 2023-24.