Vermin pair helps Crunch battle back against Griffins

Joel Vermin’s third and fourth goals of the series helped the host Syracuse Crunch battle back and hold off the Grand Rapids Griffins 5-3 at Onondaga County War Memorial Arena, giving the Crunch its first win of the American Hockey League Calder Cup Championship series.

The hometown win denied the Griffins a shot at taking a commanding 3-0 lead in the set and possibly changed momentum as the Crunch got a strong 32-save performance from Mike McKenna in goal and never trailed after Byron Froese opened the scoring at the seven-minute mark.

Tyler Bertuzzi pulled the Griffins even a little over two minutes later but Vermin notched his two goals 57-seconds apart later in the period to give the Crunch a 3-1 lead after 20 minutes.

Dominic Turgeon notched his first of the post season 6:58 into the second to get the Griffs to within a goal, but Tye McGinn and Cory Conacher scored second half goals to up the margin to 5-2 for the home side.

Kyle Criscuolo pulled one back for the Griffins 80 seconds after the fifth Crunch goal but McKenna turned aside all the 10 third period shots by the Griffins to get his team to the finish line.

Jared Coreau turned aside 27 shots in goal for the Griffins.

The Crunch could even the series on Friday (June 9) when it hosts Game 4 in this series.