Game 41 Recap: Second Period Dooms Phantoms In Loss to Penguins
WILKES-BARRE - Through 20 minutes of play, the top two teams in the AHL's Atlantic Division looked pretty evenly matched. The Lehigh Valley Phantoms held a 1-0 lead, but both teams had their moments of pressure offensively.
The game became pretty one-sided in the final 40 minutes, and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins extended their latest winning streak to eight games with four unanswered goals in a 4-1 win over the Phantoms Wednesday night at the snowy Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.
Phil Myers scored the lone goal on the power play, and Dustin Tokarski stopped 24 of the 27 shots he faced in for Lehigh Valley.
"We just didn't carry it over into the second period," head coach Scott Gordon said following the loss. "Just some poor reads, decisions.. I thought there were parts of the game where I thought we were good in the offensive zone. When we weren't good [offensively] establishing a forecheck largely because we made poor decisions at their blue line which led to turnovers and as a result some costly mistakes."
Looking Ahead: The Phantoms head outdoors this weekend when they take on the Hershey Bears in the 2018 AHL Outdoor Classic Saturday night at HersheyPark Stadium.
Phantoms Lines (Starters in Bold/Italics)
Greg Carey - Phil Varone - Cole Bardreau Chris Conner - Mike Vecchione - Nicolas Aube-Kubel Oskar Lindblom - Matt Read - Colin McDonaldRadel Fazleev - Steven Swavely - Alex Krushelnyski
T.J. Brennan - Reece WillcoxMark Friedman - Mark Alt Sam Morin - Phil Myers
Dustin Tokarski - Alex Lyon
Scratches: Will O'Neill (healthy), Corban Knight (injured), Mikhail Vorobyev (injured), Danick Martel (injured), Max Lamarche (healthy) and Chris McCarthy (healthy)
Lineup Notes
Dustin Tokarski got the start in net Wednesday night against Wilkes-Barre. Alex Lyon, who picked up the win on Sunday in Hershey, backed up Tokarski.
Sam Morin re-entered the lineup on defense after appearing in one game last weekend.
Defenseman Will O'Neill served as the team's veteran scratch.
Chris Conner returned to the lineup up front for the Phantoms, while Sunday's 11 forward/seven defensemen lineup was replaced with the standard 12F/6D setup.
Max Lamarche was the other healthy scratch, as the injured list remains the same for Lehigh Valley.
Forward Chris McCarthy was called up from Reading (ECHL) with Danick Martel (broken jaw) out of action for the foreseeable future.
POST-GAME REACTION
GAME RECAP
The Phantoms and Penguins played whistle-free hockey to open the game, going 4:08 of game action before the first stoppage of the night.
After some back-and-forth, and evenly-played, hockey in the opening minutes the Phantoms got the game's first power play near the midway mark of the opening frame.
Lehigh Valley was unable to cash in on their first man advantage, but they made the second power play count - and quickly.
Just 11 seconds into their second man advantage of the night, Phil Varone got a puck back to the point to Phil Myers for a point blast that appeared to deflect in past Pens' goalie () off a WBS defender in front. Myers' 3rd of the season gave the Phantoms a 1-0 lead with 4:49 left before the first intermission.
The Phantoms had a crucial penalty kill awaiting them with 2:06 left in the period, but they were able to escape to the locker room unscathed, and with the 1-0 lead in a pretty evenly-played first frame - all things considered. Shots were 11-8 in favor of the Penguins.
As evenly matched as the first frame was, the second period was one-sided in favor of the home team.
The Penguins tallied early and often in a three-goal middle frame that saw the Phantoms relinquish their 1-0 lead, and head to the locker room for the second intermission trailing 3-1.
First, the Penguins scored in transition 5:32 into the second period to tie the game up at 1-1. Zach Aston-Reese sent a stretch pass through the neutral zone to Ryan Haggerty, who entered the zone with speed and dropped a pass for Gage Quinney. Quinney skated to the top of the right-wing circle before beating Phantoms' goaltender Dustin Tokarski with a quick shot for Quinney's seventh of the season.
The Pens took the lead on a power play goal with 6:51 left before the second intermission. Greg McKegg led a rush to the net, and Christian Thomas dug a puck out from under Tokarski to bury a rebound of an Aston-Reese bid at the net to make it a 2-1 WBS lead.
Just over three minutes later, the Pens cashed in on a 2-on-1 rush to make it a 3-1 WBS lead. Caught on the ice for a long shift, Oskar Lindblom ran out of gas and was trailing the play on a back-check for Lehigh Valley - leading to Colin Smith and Teddy Blueger coming into the Phantoms' defensive zone on a 2-on-1. Smith slid a pass across to Blueger for his 12th of the season with 3:26 left in the period.
The Phantoms forced the issue in the third period, and they appeared to make it a one-goal game with just over 12 minutes remaining in regulation. Unfortunately for the orange and black, Greg Carey's goal inside the right post was waived off due to incidental contact with the goaltender in a net-front battle.
Instead, it was the Penguins tacking on an empty netter with just over five minutes left as head coach Scott Gordon elected to pull the goalie for the extra attacker a bit earlier than usual with an offensive zone face-off. The Phantoms lost the draw, and the puck was shot into the empty cage by Aston-Reese.
GAME SUMMARY
1st Period
9:16: WBS - (PP) Summers, minor (hooking) 15:00: WBS - (PP) Pedan, minor (roughing) 15:11: LV - PPG Myers (3) - Varone, Brennan 17:54: LV - (PP) Carey, minor (roughing)
2nd Period
5:32: WBS - Quinney (7) - Haggerty, Aston-Reese 11:32: LV - (PP) Friedman, minor (slashing) 13:09: WBS - PPG Thomas (11) - Aston-Reese, McKegg 16:34: WBS - Blueger (12) - Smith, Di Pauli 17:42: LV - (PP) Alt, minor (tripping)
3rd Period
14:58: WBS - ENG Aston-Reese (6) - Haggerty 18:17: WBS - (PP) Corrado, minor (cross-checking)
BOXSCORE
Lehigh Valley 1 - 0 - 0 = 1 W-B/Scranton 0 - 3 - 1 = 4
Shots
Lehigh Valley 8 - 5 - 10 = 23 W-B/Scranton 11 - 9 - 8 = 28
Goalies
LV - Dustin Tokarski (24 saves - 27 shots) WBS - Anthony Peters (22 saves - 23 shots)
Power Play
LV: 1-for-3 WBS: 1-for-3
Penalty Kill
LV: 2-for-3 WBS: 2-for-3
Attendance: 4,530
