Friday Night (Goal) Lights - Penguins Outlast Phantoms 6-5
ALLENTOWN - The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (7-3-1) and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins (7-2-0) entertained 8,517 fans at the PPL Center Friday night to the tune of ten goals, two waved off goals and a shootout goal. Unfortunately for the home fans in downtown Allentown, it was the Penguins getting the last goal in a 6-5 shootout victory.
Chris Conner had a game-high four points (one goal, three assists), T.J. Brennan (one goal, one assist) and Oskar Lindblom (two assists) tallied two points each and the Phantoms also got goals from Tyrell Goulbourne, Danick Martel and Mikhail Vorobyev in a losing effort.
Meanwhile, the Penguins saw Garrett Wilson tally three assists, Ryan Haggerty add a pair of goals and Jean-Sebastien Dea record a goal and an assist to help Wilkes-Barre/Scranton's attack.
Looking Ahead: The Phantoms are right back at it Saturday night in Binghamton before closing out the weekend with their third game in a 46-hour span Sunday at home against Toronto.
Phantoms' Lines (Starters in Bold/Italics)
Greg Carey - Phil Varone - Chris Conner (A) Danick Martel - Mike Vecchione - Nicolas Aube-Kubel Oskar Lindblom - Mikhail Vorobyev - Colin McDonald (C) Tyrell Goulbourne - Corban Knight (A) - Cole Bardreau
T.J. Brennan - Max Lamarche Mark Friedman - Reece WillcoxJames De Haas - Phil Myers
Dustin Tokarski - Alex Lyon
Scratches: Anthony Stolarz (knee surgery - out indefinitely), Sam Morin (injured) and Radel Fazleev (healthy)
ROSTER NOTES
Lehigh Valley Phantoms
It was Dustin Tokarski, not Alex Lyon, starting the weekend off in net for the Phantoms. With three games in three nights, both goalies will get to play.
T.J. Brennan returned to action for his first game since October 14th.
Head coach Scott Gordon said Phil Myers left the game at some point in the second period. He didn't return for the third period, and when asked said he wasn't sure if Myers would be able to play Saturday in Binghamton.
RECAP
It was a feisty first period between the Phantoms and Penguins Friday night in Allentown, as these two rivals - facing each other for the third time out of 12 scheduled regular season meetings - quickly started to grow a dislike for one another. There seemed to be extra curricular activities after just about every stoppage in play.
Lehigh Valley opened the scoring after an unbelievable pass by Chris Conner threaded the needle to Tyrell Goulbourne at the net-front. Goulbourne got just enough of it to get it past Penguins' goalie Casey DeSmith for his first of the year 13:52 into the contest.
After a double-minor high-sticking penalty on Chris Summers gave the Phantoms a four-minute power play to work with in the final 4:29 of the period, they appeared to take a 2-0 lead only to have the goal called off due to a quick whistle.
Instead, the Penguins caught a break and the Phantoms took the 1-0 lead into the middle frame, where goals began to come in bunches for both teams.
The Penguins opened the period with three straight goals to take a 3-1 lead.
Gage Quinney scored on the exact same play at the same end of the ice that the Phantoms had disallowed due to a quick whistle just 1:43 into the period. This time, the referee was in perfect position to see a loose puck in Dustin Tokarski's crease. Quinney pulled it out of the scramble and slipped one past the Phantoms' netminder for his fourth of the year.
Christian Thomas tapped home a rebound past Tokarski on the power play to give the Pens a 2-1 lead at the 7:14 mark, and Jean-Sebastien Dea hustled and took a pass from Garrett Wilson to tally a shorthanded goal to extend the Pens' lead to 3-1 near the midway point of regulation.
Then, it was the Phantoms' turn to get the offense firing on all cylinders - to the tune of three goals in a span of 6:16 to turn a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead.
First, Danick Martel took a feed from Oskar Lindblom and patiently deked the goalie out of his crease before potting his league-leading 11th of the season. The goal came just 45 seconds after Dea's shorthanded tally for the Penguins - a big time response by Lehigh Valley after seeing their 1st period lead decimated into a 3-1 deficit. Instead, it was a one-goal game.
The Pens appeared to score on the next shift, but the goal was immediately waved off for what appeared to be incidental contact with Tokarski atop the Phantoms' netminder's crease.
Perhaps a break for the Phantoms - similar to the one the Pens got late in the first period - who kept the momentum rolling before tying the game thanks to a great individual effort by T.J. Brennan, who took a pass from Knight and - from an impossible angle along the goal line - picked the near-side corner on DeSmith with 4:55 left before the second intermission.
Lehigh Valley wasn't done there, taking the lead with 3:29 left in the middle frame on Mikhail Vorobyev's first career AHL goal. Lindblom won a puck battle in the corner and got a puck behind the net to Conner, who found Vorobyev in front for a low shot past DeSmith.
With momentum on their side, the Phantoms appeared ready to take a 4-4 game to the third period. Instead, a bad turnover in the defensive zone forced by Dea ended up in the back of the Phantoms' net with under 11 seconds left before the 2nd intermission. Dea got a puck from the half-wall to the middle for Ryan Haggerty whose hard rising shot beat Tokarski to the top shelf.
Haggerty wasn't done there either, getting in front of Tokarski 7:03 into the third period and being in the right place at the right time. Andrey Pedan fired a shot on net from the right point, and the puck bounced off of Haggerty's skate before redirecting in to give the Penguins a 5-4 lead as the back and forth game continued.
Luckily for Lehigh Valley, they tied the game and eventually headed to overtime after Conner tallied his fourth point of the night on a goal with 8:34 left in regulation. T.J. Brennan's point shot was deflected by Cole Bardreau, but DeSmith came up with the save. The rebound, however, bounced out to the side of the net where Conner was in perfect position to slam it home.
A pair of Phantoms penalties in the overtime period limited their ability to go for the win in the extra session, but the penalty killers came up big both times - with both Max Lamarche and Reece Willcox earning a pair of gutsy blocks on one-timers.
Willcox in particular, blocked a big one-timer and the puck went right back to the shooter. What did Willcox do, clearly in pain from blocking the first one? He threw himself in front of the second attempt and blocked that one too. It drew a rise from the crowd, and everyone on the Phantoms' bench as well.
Ultimately, after 10 goals, it was a lone shootout goal by Christian Thomas that allowed the Penguins to earn the second point up for grabs.
POST-GAME REACTION
GAME SUMMARY
1st Period
4:44: WBS - (PP) Pedan, minor (hooking) 5:07: LV - (PP) Brennan, minor (slashing) 13:52: LV - Goulbourne (1) - Conner, Myers 15:31: WBS - (PP) Summers, double-minor (high-sticking)
2nd Period
1:43: WBS - Quinney (4) - Sprong, Wilson 4:18: WBS - Aston-Reese, major (fighting) 4:18: LV - McDonald, major (fighting) 5:27: LV - (PP) Aube-Kubel, minor (slashing) 7:14: WBS - PPG Thomas (3) - Simon, Johnson 8:53: WBS - (PP) Spinozzi, minor (tripping) 9:30: WBS - SHG Dea (4) - Wilson 10:15: PPG Martel (11) - Conner, Lindblom 15:03: LV - Brennan (1) - unassisted 16:31: LV - Vorobyev (1) - Conner, Lindblom 16:58:LV - (PP) Lamarche, minor (tripping) 19:49: Haggerty (3) - Dea
3rd Period
2:28: WBS - (PP) Pedan, minor (cross-checking) 3:49: LV - (PP) Carey, minor (interference) 7:03: WBS - Haggerty (4) - Pedan, Bengtsson 11:26: LV - Conner (2) - Bardreau, Brennan 15:40: WBS - (PP) Aston-Reese, minor (high-sticking)
OT
1:17: LV - (PP) Vecchione, minor (hooking) 4:44: LV - (PP) Tokarski, minor (delay of game
Shootout
LV
Knight - no goal Lindblom - no goal Conner - no goal
WBS
Dea - no goal Sprong - no goal Thomas - GOAL
BOXSCORE
Lehigh Valley 1 - 3 - 1 - 0 = 6 W-B/Scranton 0 - 4 - 1 - 0 = 5
Shots
Lehigh Valley 15 - 10 - 11 - 4 = 40 W-B/Scranton 9 - 12 - 9 - 3 = 33
Goalies
LV - Dustin Tokarski (28 saves - 33 shots) WBS - Casey DeSmith (35 saves - 40 shots)
Power Play
LV: 1-for-6 WBS: 1-for-6
Penalty Kill
LV: 5-for-6 WBS: 5-for-6
Attendance: 8,517
