Phantoms Post-Game EXTRA! (10/13/21)

ALLENTOWN, Pa. - The Lehigh Valley Phantoms concluded the preseason Wednesday night on a sour note, dropping a 3-0 shutout loss to rival Hershey in front of the home crowd at PPL Center.

"I said before it's a process, and I know it's preseason but it's starting in preseason the process starting and we just got to get better every day," head coach Ian Laperriere said after the game.

Wednesday night's game story --> https://insideahlhockey.com/article/ahl-preseason-2021-hershey-3-at-lehigh-valley-0-101321

Three Things

1. Shots On Goal

In the final two preseason games against Hershey, the Phantoms managed a total of 30 shots - 16 in Sunday's game and 14 on Wednesday. They're getting some opportunities in good shooting locations in the offensive zone, but they've simply been off-target.

"What concerned me is we miss the net,"  Laperriere said post-game Wednesday night. "We do have chances to put it on net, and we don't. Obviously it's pre-season, [but we] wanted to finish on a good note. Now we're going to move on. And I told the guys that we have a lot of work to do and we'll get back here tomorrow."

2. Early Power Play's Woes?

Lehigh Valley had plenty of power play chances Wednesday, but ultimately went 0-for-7 on the night.

On their first power play of the night, they thought they scored when Cam York - from the center point - started a quick passing play with Morgan Frost along the right-wing half-wall. Frost collected and one-touched a hard pass across the circles to Isaac Ratcliffe, who's shot got in behind Bears' goalie Zach Fucale. The referee signaled goal, but after a review the play was overturned and the goal disallowed.

"When I shot it, I mean, I didn't really have a great look at it," Ratcliffe explained post-game. "I saw the puck bounced and I thought it looked like it hit the back of the mesh in the side there and then bounced down on the line, but obviously the ref went over the replay and that's not what he saw so unfortunately it didn't go our way."

Speaking of Ratcliffe, the 6-foot-6 forward got into a bit of an unexpected tussle in the second period after Bears' forward Ben Hawerchuk sent captain Cal O'Reilly flying to the ice with a cross-check.

"Yeah, it was a little bit spur of the moment I didn't really know he dropped his gloves until I ate two right away," Ratcliffe told InsideAHLHockey.com. "After that, it was pretty much just kind of grab them and try to get him to the ice, and obviously I'm a lot bigger than him so it wasn't too hard to do that at that point. But obviously in a different scenario, I'd like to get my gloves off a lot quicker and maybe throw a couple of my own."

3. The Next One Counts

The Phantoms finished the preseason 1-3-0, and will begin their regular season this weekend with two road games on Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre and Sunday afternoon in Hershey.

"Yeah I don't think it was a great game for us. We were pretty sloppy and we had a tough time getting pucks to the net, and probably a few too many turnovers," captain Cal O'Reilly said post-game. "But we're in no panic. We got a new group it's really the first time we've all played together, but the regular season is coming quick so we really got to have a practice or two and get going here get on the same page."