Game 31 Recap: Phantoms Come Up Short At Home Against Hartford
ALLENTOWN - The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (18-9-4) played well for long portions of Wednesday night's game against the Hartford WolfPack (12-12-6), but they were unable to fully recover from a 2-0 first period deficit - having never led the contest and ultimately falling short in a 5-4 overtime defeat.
Reece Willcox and Oskar Lindblom tallied a goal and an assist each for the Phantoms - who also got goals from Steven Swavely and Greg Carey - but it wasn't enough to keep Hartford from extending their unbeaten streak to eight games (5-0-3).
Looking Ahead: Just one game left for Lehigh Valley before a brief hiatus for the holidays, as the Phantoms travel up the Pennslvania Turnpike to Wilkes-Barre to battle the Penguins on Saturday night.
Phantoms' Lines (Starters in Bold/Italics)
Greg Carey - Phil Varone - Chris Conner Nicolas Aube-Kubel - Corban Knight - Danick MartelOskar Lindblom - Matt Read - Tyrell Goulbourne Tyrell Goulbourne - Steven Swavely - Radel Fazleev
T.J. Brennan - Reece WillcoxWill O'Neill - Mark Friedman Adam Comrie - James de Haas
Dustin Tokarski - John Muse
Scratches: Sam Morin, Phil Myers, Cole Bardreau, Colin McDonald, Mikhail Vorobyev, Max Lamarche and Mike Vecchione
Lineup Notes
Dustin Tokarski got his second straight start after a strong performance in Bridgeport Sunday afternoon. John Muse again served as his backup, though he may be on his way to Reading shortly as Michal Neuvirth is close to returning in Philadelphia. Alex Lyon cannot be sent down until after the NHL's roster freeze ends on December 28th.
Same lineup for Lehigh Valley as all seven injured players remained out of the lineup.
RECAP
A pair of penalties back-to-back by Lehigh Valley - the kind of avoidable infractions that drive a coach crazy - slowed the Phantoms from getting any early momentum in the opening six minutes. Luckily for Lehigh Valley, Phantoms goaltender Dustin Tokarski and the penalty killers got the job done - no harm, no foul.
In fact, the Phantoms started to take it to Hartford as the period wore on - out-shooting the WolfPack 17-9 in the opening period. Despite the strong play in the middle part of the period, the Phantoms entered the first intermission trailing Hartford 2-0.
With just under four minutes left in the opening period, Mark Friedman lost his stick in a puck battle in the corner behind the Phantoms' net. As he bent over to pick up his stick, the puck quickly made its way to the center point to Anthony DeAngelo. The WolfPack defender recognized Friedman had put himself out of the play by picking his stick up in the corner and fired a pass to the left-wing circle that Friedman had vacated right to Caleb Herbert. The wide open Hartford forward fired a quick shot past Tokarski for his first of the season in his first game with Hartford this season.
Herbert, the ECHL's leading scorer with the WolfPack's ECHL affiliate in Greenville (16 goals, 20 assists in 23 games), wasn't done there either.
On his next shift, Herbert deked his way into the Phantoms' defensive zone on the left wing, and sent a perfect pass cross-ice to Gabriel Fontaine who one-timed a puck past Tokarski to make it a 2-0 Hartford lead with 1:53 left before the first intermission.
Inversely, it was the Phantoms being out-shot and spending a lot of time in the defensive zone in the middle frame. But similarly to the first period, the team that was out-shot and out-played capitalized on their chances.
Lehigh Valley tallied three goals on seven shots in the middle frame, turning a 2-0 deficit into a 3-3 tie heading to the third period.
Matt Read was dominant on one his first shifts of the middle frame, generating three great chances on the same shift. His first two setups to teammates weren't finished off, but the third time was the charm.
Oskar Lindblom stole a puck off a WolfPack forward in the defensive zone and Matt Read picked it up, skating down the left wing and pulling up before centering to a trailing Reece Willcox. Willcox went forehand to backhand atop the crease and in for his second goal of the season that cut the deficit in half, at 2-1 five minutes into the middle frame.
Hartford re-gained their two-goal lead at 3-1 midway through the period on Ryan Gropp's seventh of the season, but Lehigh Valley answered 1:43 later to make it a one-goal game again.
Alex Krushelnyski got a puck to Reece Willcox atop the right-wing circle, and Steven Swavely positioned himself in front of the WolfPack goaltender for a deflection goal - his second in back-to-back games, to make it a 3-2 deficit with 8:04 left in the period.
The Phantoms were buzzing and hungry to get the game-tying goal before the second intermission, and they did so with 1:09 left.
After some extended offensive zone pressure, Phil Varone got a puck to James de Haas who found Greg Carey at the center point. Carey did the rest, blasting a slap shot to the top shelf past Mazenec for his 16th of the season to even the score at 3-3 heading into the third period.
The sea-saw battle continued in the third, as Hartford would go up 4-3 on a John Gilmour shot from the left point that appeared to change directions on its way past Tokarski.
Just 1:26 later, while the Phantoms were on their second power play of the night, the trio Phil Varone, Chris Conner and Oskar Lindblom connected on a tic-tac-toe passing display to again tie the game up.
Varone got one down low to Conner, who quickly one-touched the puck in front to Lindblom for a quick shot that found its way past Mazenec for Lindblom's 8th of the season.
Each team had a chance to secure the lead in regulation, but both teams were unsucessful on a power play chance of their own in the second half of the period - forcing the 3-on-3 OT.
The Phantoms had two glorious chances in the 3-on-3 OT as Read got a puck to Corban Knight, who made a nice move and opened up the short side on Mazenec. Unfortunately for Knight and the Phantoms, the forward just missed the short side and hit the back glass behind the net.
Later in the OT, Varone and Conner had a 2-on-1 chance but the puck hit the heel of Conner's stick on the shot toward the net and missed the mark - springing Hartford the other way on a 2-on-1 that Anthony DeAngelo fired past Tokarski to give the WolfPack the two points in a 5-4 overtime win.
POST-GAME REACTION
GAME SUMMARY
1st Period
2:01: LV - (PP) Fazleev, minor (face-off violation) 4:12: LV - (PP) bench minor, too many men (served by Martel) 7:09: HFD - (PP) Kosmachuk, minor (slashing) 16:06: HFD - Herbert (1) - DeAngelo, Graves 18:07: HFD - Fontaine (5) - Herbert, Leedahl
2nd Period
5:00: LV - Willcox (2) - Read, Lindblom 8:18: HFD - Crawley, major (fighting) 8:18: LV - (PP) Goulbourne, minor (instigating) 8:18: LV - Goulbourne, major (fighting) 8:18: LV - Goulbourne, ten-minute misconduct 10:13: HFD - Gropp (7) - Fogarty, Gilmour 11:56: LV - Swavely (2) - Willcox, Krushelnyski 18:48: LV - Carey (16) - de Haas, Varone
3rd Period
6:00: HFD - Gilmour (5) - Pionk, Tambellini 7:15: HFD - (PP) Crawley, minor (holding the stick) 7:26: LV - PPG Lindblom (8) - Conner, Varone 10:12: HFD - (PP) Herbert, minor (tripping) 13:56: LV - (PP) Brennan, minor (boarding)
Overtime
1:40: HFD - DeAngelo (2) - Holland
BOXSCORE
Lehigh Valley 0 - 3 - 1 - 0 = 4 Hartford 2 - 1 - 1 - 1 = 5
Shots
Lehigh Valley 17 - 7 - 9 - 0 = 33 Hartford 9 - 11 - 14 - 1 = 35
Goalies
LV - Dustin Tokarski (30 saves - 35 shots) HFD - Marek Mazenec (29 saves - 33 shots)
Power Play
LV: 1-for-3 HFD: 1-for-4
Penalty Kill
LV: 3-for-4 HFD: 2-for-3
Attendance: 7,026
