GAME STORY: 2019-20 Season - Belleville at Lehigh Valley 11/23/19

GAME STORY: 2019-20 Season - Belleville at Lehigh Valley 11/23/19

ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (8-5-5) look to finish the week off with their third straight win when the Belleville Senators (9-8-1) make their lone scheduled visit to PPL Center this season. Puck drops at 7:15 p.m ET

Lehigh Valley Phantoms Roster Notes

Greg Carey - Cal O'Reilly - Nicolas Aube-Kubel Carsen Twarynski - Gerry Fitzgerald - Kurtis Gabriel Matthew Strome - Mikhail Vorobyev - David Kase Maksim Sushko - Steven Swavely - Pascal Laberge

T.J. Brennan - Reece Willcox Tyler Wothersooon - Nate Prosser James de Haas - Mark Friedman

J-F Berube - Alex Lyon

Phantoms' Scratches: Andy Welinski, Andy Andreoff (veteran) German Rubtsov (injury), Isaac Ratcliffe (injury), Connor Bunnaman (injury), Chris Bigras (injury) and Kyle Criscuolo

GAME STORY

1st Period

Belleville jumped out to a 2-0 lead on three shots in the opening half of the period, putting Lehigh Valley in an early hole and forcing them to immediately begin playing catch up.

Rookie Alex Formenton got behind the Phantoms' defense on a feed from Rudolfs Balcers and beat J-F Berube in close 5:14 into the contest to get the Senators off and running, while Formenton repaid the favor three minutes later and set up Balcers  in the slot to extend the Senators' lead.

The Phantoms had some chances to chip away at the lead, out-shooting the Senators 9-7 in the period, but were unable to get one past Filip Gustavsson in the opening 20 minutes.

Nicolas Aube-Kubel was noticeable for the Phantoms in the first period tonight, and has been more active in general in recent games.

2nd Period

The Phantoms were much better in the middle frame, getting eight of the first 10 shots on goal in the opening seven-plus minutes of the stanza.

Notably, Maksim Sushko had a mini-breakaway chance after taking a stretch pass in stride at the offensive zone blue line. Unfortunately for Sushko, he was tripped up as he was getting his shot off and Gustavsson made the stop - keeping the Phantoms off the board.

Lehigh Valley had the better of play for a majority of the period, but were again unable to get one past Gustavsson despite two power play chances in the period on top of the 13 shots they fired Belleville's way.

3rd Period

Much like the second period, the Phantoms put plenty of pucks toward Gustavsson's net - out shooting Belleville 14-3 in the period - but ultimately were unable to get back to within a goal until Greg Carey got a power play marker with 13.1 left to play, dropping a 2-1 decision to the Senators to finish out the weekend and the first quarter of the 2019-20 regular season.

GAME SUMMARY

1st Period

1:23: LV - (PP) Carey, minor (cross-checking) 5:14: BEL - Formenton (6) - Balcers 8:37: BEL - Balcers (4) - Formenton 12:32: BEL - (PP) Parisi, minor (holding the stick)

2nd Period

9:36: BEL - (PP) bench minor, too many men (served by Abramov) 17:17: BEL - (PP) Kelly, minor (holding)

3rd Period

1:00: LV - (PP) Vorobyev, minor (hooking) 13:53: BEL - (PP) Beauchemin, minor (holding) 19:46: LV - PPG Carey (7) - Aube-Kubel, O'Reilly

BOXSCORE

Belleville  2 - 0 - 0 = 2 Lehigh Valley  0 - 0 - 1 = 1

Shots

Belleville  7 - 8 - 3 = 18 Lehigh Valley 9 - 13 - 16 = 38

Goalies

BEL: Filip Gustavsson (37 saves - 38 shots) LV: J-F Berube (16 saves - 18 shots)

Power Play

BEL: 0-for-2 LV: 1-for-5

Penalty Kill

BEL: 4-for-5 LV: 2-for-2

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