Devon Levi makes 60 saves but it wasn't enough as Amerks fall in double overtime to Crunch

SYRACUSE - Rochester Amerks goaltender Devon Levi played one of the best games you’ll ever see Thursday night, and it was all for naught because his teammates could not do a thing on offense and lost 2-1 in double overtime to the Syracuse Crunch.

Game 3 of the Calder Cup North Division semifinal will forever be remembered for Levi’s brilliant 60-save performance, certainly not for the goal that was scored by Waltteri Mirela on a breakaway 10:18 into the second extra session which gave Syracuse a two-games-to-one lead in the best-of-five series.

“Devon was excellent,” Amerks coach Seth Appert said. “I think that was just his game. He’s just a really good goalie. I thought we defended the front of the net extremely hard and battled and cleared rebounds and blocked shots in tight. And I thought he did a great job finding pucks from the perimeter.”

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do on the winner as Mirela breezed in all alone to beat him.

“He got me down and then the ice was so bad, I felt like I had good speed with him but I just stuck to the ice and he walked around me,” Levi explained.

Levi, playing in his first professional postseason series, never had a moment’s rest at Upstate Medical University Arena as the Crunch dominated play most of the way. He had to make 21 saves in the first period, 10 in the second, only six in a slumbering third period, 19 more in the first overtime, and then stopped five in the second OT before Syracuse finally won on its 62nd shot.

Last year against the Crunch, the Amerks dropped the first two games and roared back to win the last three so Appert has full confidence that the series is far from over.

“We’ve won series the last couple years with our back against the wall, on the road, in hard environments,” he said. “And this team has got a ton of resilience, we have all year and we have for the last couple years.”

Here's what happened in Game 3:

First period: A supreme scoreless survival

Not surprisingly, playing their first game of the series on home ice, the Crunch came out flying and they dominated the opening 20 minutes, outshooting Rochester 17-3 in the first 12 minutes and 21-8 by the time the period came to an end.

Levi was tested early and often, particularly on the second of three Crunch power plays when they poured seven shots on net. The best came when Levi robbed Alex Barre-Boulet from in tight about midway through the advantage. There were other chances for Syracuse as well but on two occasions, Amerks forward Isak Rosen made terrific plays on the back check to deny what would have been Grade-A scoring opportunities.

The Amerks had limited chances, but one was Brandon Biro breaking in from the right wing only to have Crunch goalie Brandon Halvorson stop him, and defenseman Nikita Novikov also got open in the slot but fired the puck went into Halvorsen’s logo.

Second period: Penalty shot ties game

While the ice wasn’t as tilted as it was in the first 20 minutes, Syracuse certainly had the better of the play, but the Crunch made a mistake in the final minute that allowed the Amerks to tie the score at 1-1.

Rosen got behind the Crunch defense and Brandon Biro sent him in on a partial breakaway and Phillipe Myers, trying to recover, hauled Rosen down and a penalty shot was called.

Rosen skated out to the right circle, then curled back to the middle before wiring one over Halvorsen’s glove with 54 seconds left in the period.

Rochester nearly opened the scoring 20 seconds into the period when a weird bounce off the back wall caromed out front but Lukas Rousek couldn’t get control with an empty net staring at him.

Levi made a nice save on Cole Koepke at 4:30, then stopped both Max Crozier and Jordy Bellerive on an odd-man rush three minutes later.

The Crunch broke the scoreless tie at 11:10 on a possession that began when Rochester defenseman Ryan Johnson had a chance to clear the zone but didn’t. Eventually the puck wound up at the right point where Declan Carlile threaded a pass through the slot and Barre-Boulet, who snuck in on the back door, deftly redirected it past Levi.

Third period: A whole lot of nothing

The Crunch were flying again early in the third and during a quick stretch in the fourth minute, Levi had to make three high quality saves to keep the game tied. At that point, he had stopped 34 of 35.

But from there, the chances were few and far between for both sides as they each played tentatively, waiting for the opportunity to pounce on a mistake, but it never happened and so for the second time in the this series, 60 minutes wasn’t enough.

Overtime: Levi was great again

Not much changed in the first overtime as the Crunch spent long stretches of the period in the Amerks’ zone, but Levi stopped all 19 shots he faced.

Rochester actually had two of the best chances to end the game. Right after a wild scramble in front of Levi produced nothing, the Amerks raced up ice and Tyson Kozak couldn’t convert an open look as he drove to the net. And then Mason Jobst, after sitting in the penalty box for inadvertently flipping the puck over the glass from the defensive zone for a delay of game, returned to the ice and he and Rosen broke in 2-on-0 but their give-and-go play ended with Halvorsen robbing Jobst with 3:39 left.

Second overtime: A rookie mistake proves costly

The winning goal came when Anton Wahlberg tried to carry the puck into the Syracuse zone despite being outnumbered and he turned it over to Gage Goncalves. And then somehow Mirela got behind the Amerks defense, Goncalves fed him perfectly and he was in clear from center ice. Mirela came in and put a nice deke on before whipped a forehand into the net with Levi prone on the ice.

“Obviously that was a pretty big mistake there by a young guy at the end, an immature play and you hate to lose on a play like that because it was a needless play,” Appert said.

Inside the numbers

∎ Levi became the first Amerks goalie to make 21 saves in a period during a postseason game since Tyler Plante stopped 23 shots in the first period of a game on April 21, 2010.

∎ The Amerks’ postseason record for most saves in a game is 85 held by Tim Bernhardt in a four-overtime loss to New Haven in 1982.

∎ During the regular season the Amerks had a terrible time on the power play against Syracuse, going 6-for-41 in 12 games, a scoring rate of just 14%. They turned the tables in the first two games as they scored on both their man advantages, but in this game they went 0-for-2.

∎ The Crunch are 0-for-11 on the power play through the first three games including 0-for-7 Thursday.

∎ Rosen was Rochester’s leading scorer against the Crunch in the regular-season series with nine points (2 goals, 7 assists).

What’s next?

The Amerks will try to extend their season when Game 4 is played right back here in Syracuse Saturday with a 7:05 faceoff.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out every other Friday during the offseason, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Amerks lose 2-1 in double overtime to Crunch in AHL playoffs