Game 26 Recap: Phantoms Come Up Short In Hershey
HERSHEY - On some nights, things just don't go your way. For the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, it began well before they arrived to the Giant Center for Saturday night's game.
A snowstorm moving through the area caused a multiple vehicle accident on Interstate 78, closing the westbound lanes at Exit 40 and causing the Phantoms' team bus to be re-routed amidst a large backup of traffic. The team didn't arrive to the rink until 6:11 p.m. ET, which caused the start time of the game to be pushed back to 7:15 p.m. ET instead of its scheduled 7 p.m. start.
Having just 20 minutes to get the locker room set up, get changed into their gear and head out for a quick warmup the Phantoms continued to battle against bounces going the other way for much of the night. You could argue the first three Bears' goals in their 4-2 win over Lehigh Valley Saturday were the direct result of some well-timed puck luck.
Still, the Phantoms nearly climbed out of a 2-0 hole in the third period - twice making it a one-goal game on goals from Oskar Lindblom and Mikhail Vorobyev. Unfortunately for Lehigh Valley, each time the Phantoms closed in on tying the game up the Bears responded with a tally of their own to hold on for the win.
Looking Ahead: The Phantoms will head to Charlotte for the first time in Lehigh Valley's history as an AHL franchise for a pair of early-week games against the Checkers on Tuesday and Wednesday night to start their slate of games next week.
Phantoms' Lines (Starters in Bold/Italics)
Greg Carey - Phil Varone - Chris Conner Tyrell Goulbourne - Corban Knight - Colin McDonald (C)Oskar Lindblom - Mikhail Vorobyev - Matt Read Danick Martel - Mike Vecchione - Nicolas Aube-Kubel
T.J. Brennan - Reece WillcoxJames de Haas - Max Lamarche Adam Comrie - Mark Friedman
Dustin Tokarski - John Muse
Scratches: Anthony Stolarz (out indefinitely - knee surgery), Sam Morin (injured), Phil Myers (lower body), Will O'Neill (veteran scratch), Cole Bardreau (upper body), Radel Fazleev (healthy), and Frank Hora (healthy)
Lineup Notes
Dustin Tokarski made his third straight start in the last four nights Saturday in Hershey. John Muse again backed up Tokarski.
The forward lines remained the same from last night's game, but defensemen T.J. Brennan and Reece Willcox returned to the lineup on defense.
Will O'Neill served as the team's veteran scratch, while Frank Hora also sat out as a healthy scratch to make room on the blue line for Brennan and Willcox.
Hershey Bears Lines (Starters in Bold/Italics)
Chris Bourque - Travis Boyd - Jeremy Langlois Matthias Bau - Zach Sill - Wayne Simpson Liam O'Brien - Tyler Graovac - Riley Barber Dustin Gazley - John Albert - Garrett Mitchell
Aaron Ness - Tyler Lewington Jonas Siegenthaler - Colby Williams Hubert Labrie - Lucas Johansen
Vitek Vanecek - Pheonix Copley
Scratches: Connor Hobbs, Anthony Peluso, Hampus Gustafsson, Tommy Hughes, and Mason Mitchell
RECAP
After the Phantoms arrived late to Giant Center - at 6:11 p.m. ET - the start time of Saturday night's game was pushed back 15 minutes to 7:15 p.m. ET.
Lehigh Valley, despite a rushed pre-game routine shortened from their roughly two-hour pre-game to about 20 minutes to get off the bus, change and go out for warmups, had a glorious chance in the opening minutes to grab a 1-0 lead.
A pair of penalties on Hershey 1:14 into the game gave Lehigh Valley 91 seconds of two-man advantage time, but they were unable to cash in.
Instead, Hershey got back-to-back power plays and converted on the latter of the two to take a 1-0 lead of their own 7:36 into the first frame.
At the tail end of the power play, Riley Barber chipped a puck in deep behind Dustin Tokarski's net. James de Haas was first to the puck, but it bounced off his skate and onto Matthias Bau's stick and the 6-foot-7 Danish forward threw it quickly in front and right to rookie defenseman Lucas Johansen for an easy tap in goal past Tokarski. A series of unfortunate events for Lehigh Valley.
Other than that one bouncing puck, the Phantoms limited Hershey to just three shots on net in the opening 20 minutes in a first period that had great end to end skating and a great pace - not many whistles.
Lehigh Valley looked to be nearing a game-tying goal when Danick Martel got a puck down low all-alone, but he was robbed of extending his league-lead in goals by the right pad of Bears' goaltender Vitek Vanecek who came up with a sharp save to keep his team ahead 1-0 heading into the middle frame.
In the second period, the Phantoms again had an early period power play that they were unable to convert on. And again, the Bears tallied a goal on a bouncing puck play to extend their lead to 2-0 just 4:53 into the stanza.
At the left point, Aaron Ness used a "shot-pass" play to get a puck down low to Wayne Simpon whose one-timer attempt accidentally chopped the puck up into the air and to the middle where Chris Bourque was able to direct it in past Tokarski on just the Bears' fourth shot of the contest.
The Phantoms appeared to have a prime scoring chance on a power play as Max Lamarche got a puck across to an open Phil Varone, but the Bears goaltender pushed his net off and stopped play. He wasn't assessed a delay of game minor, but several minutes later on a similar play at the other end Tokarski was whistled for a delay of game penalty.
Later in the period, Nicolas Aube-Kubel took exception to a Jonas Siegenthaler hit from behind on Mike Vecchione along the end boards and stepped in to challenge the much larger Bears defender to a fight. Aube-Kubel landed two quick shots to Siegenthaler's face and the Bears defender had enough, wrapping Aube-Kubel up and wrestling him to the ice.
Through two periods, there were just 24 combined shots between the two teams.
In the third period, the flood gates opened.
The Phantoms and Bears traded a pair of goals - including three in a span of 2:25 - but each time Lehigh Valley would cut the deficit to one, Hershey would respond and push their lead back to two goals.
First, Oskar Lindblom slammed home the rebound of a Mikhail Vorobyev shot to make it a 2-1 game just 2:13 into the 3rd frame.
Just under two minutes later, Bears' captain Garrett Mitchell corraled a rebound of a Dustin Gazley shot and from a bad angle was able to bounce a puck in off of Tokarski's leg.
Vorobyev cut to the net on the next shift after Mitchell's goal, and finished off a centering feed from Matt Read to again force the issue and make it a one-goal game.
Instead, just after the Phantoms had killed off a Bears power play near the midway mark of the period Tyler Graovac scored his 2nd of the season to push the deficit back to two goals for good in the 4-2 loss.
POST-GAME REACTION
Head coach Scott Gordon
Gordon's thoughts:
On some weird bouncing puck plays ending up in Tokarski's net:
They got the power play goal that I thought we did a really good job defending, and it ends up in the back of our net. Nothing you can do. We generated some really good chances. Their goalie is obviously player of the game for a reason. Just gotta get back at it on Tuesday.
On knowing that if team continued to generate chances some would eventually go in:
We got a crappy bounce on.. I think it was the fourth goal after we made it 3-2. We had a puck on our stick on a breakout that we definitely should have had some net front presence, and we didn't. But, we pushed pretty hard in the third period and sometimes we get some bad luck and a couple situations that, outside of those, we did some really good things.
GAME SUMMARY
1st Period
0:45: HER - (PP) Ness, minor (tripping) 1:14: HER - (PP) Lewington, minor (delay of game) 3:32: LV - (PP) Vorobyev, minor (slashing) 5:57: LV - (PP) Martel, minor (holding) 7:36: HER - PPG Johansen (5) - Bau, Barber 17:19: LV - (PP) Comrie, minor (hooking)
2nd Period
2:14: HER - (PP) O'Brien, minor (cross-checking) 4:53: HER - Bourque (11) - Simpson, Ness 6:56: HER - (PP) Williams, minor (interference) 13:27: LV - (PP) Tokarski, minor delay of game (served by Vorobyev) 16:17: LV - Aube-Kubel, major (fighting) 16:17: HER - Siegenthaler, major (fighting)
3rd Period
2:13: LV - Lindblom (6) - Vorobyev, Read 3:54: HER - Mitchell (5) - Gazley, Albert 4:48: LV - Vorobyev (4) - Read, Martel 7:25: LV - (PP) de Haas, minor (tripping) 9:51: HER - Graovac (2) - Barber 18:35: HER - (PP) Williams, minor (interference)
BOXSCORE
Lehigh Valley 0 - 0 - 2 = 2 Hershey 1 - 1 - 2 = 4
Shots
Lehigh Valley 9 -7 - 10 = 26 Hershey 3 - 6 - 14 = 23
Goalies
LV - Dustin Tokarski (19 saves - 23 shots) HER - Vitek Vanecek (24 saves - 26 shots)
Power Play
LV: 0-for-5 HER: 1-for-5
Penalty Kill
LV: 4-for-5 HER: 5-for-5
Attendance: 8,539
