Spott and players ejected as Marlies get doubled up by the Crunch

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Brett Connolly scored once and set up three more and Jonathan Marchessault had a pair of goals as the Syracuse Crunch defeated the visiting Toronto Marlies 6-3 on Saturday in American Hockey League action.

Mike Angelidis, Yanni Gourde and Philippe Paradis also scored for the Crunch (30-30-12) while Cedrick Desjardins made 33 saves for the win.

Sam Carrick, Greg McKegg and T.J. Brennan supplied the scoring for the Marlies (42-24-6), who played half the game without head coach Steve Spott after, who was ejected in the second period for abuse of the official.

Garret Sparks started in net for Toronto but was pulled after allowing two goals on 11 shots. Christopher Gibson stopped 24-of-28 shots in 47 minutes of relief.

Toronto took the first six minor penalties of the game and found themselves down 3-0 after the first period.

Angelidis opened the scoring with a power-play goal exactly one minute into the game. Paradis doubled the Crunch lead at 12:33 and Gourde added a goal late in the period while on the man advantage.

Carrick put the Marlies on the board 3:29 into the second period, but Marchessault responded with two goals 2:03 apart to make it 5-1 Syracuse.

Frustration boiled over for Spott and his club and at 13:42 he was assessed a game misconduct for unsportsmanlike conduct. Toronto's Korbinian Holzer and Brad Staubitz were ejected for fighting altercations on the same play.

Brennan scored in the final minute of the second for the Marlies and McKegg made it a two-goal game 4:09 into the third. Connolly, however, halted any chance of a comeback when he made it 6-3 at 17:17.

Toronto's Frazer McLaren was added to the list of ejected players at 12:13 of the third when he was assessed a major for charging.

In all, the Marlies had 85 minutes in penalties while the Crunch had 37. Syracuse went 2 for 9 on the power play while Toronto went 0 for 1.