Phantoms Post-Game EXTRA! (10/16/21)

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - The Lehigh Valley Phantoms kicked off their regular season on the road Saturday night, and came up short in a 2-1 loss to their in-state rival Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. They'll head to Hershey Sunday afternoon for their second game on the weekend,

"We just need to start capitalizing on our chances. Get more bodies in front of their goalie, their goalie played well tonight, but I think we outplayed them," Foerster told InsideAHLHockey.com after the game. "There's a positive to that, but we have to go to Hershey tomorrow and come out with a win."

Saturday night's game story -> https://insideahlhockey.com/article/game-story-lehigh-valley-1-at-w-bscranton-2-101621

Three Things

1. Shots, shots, shots, shots...

In the final two games of their preseason slate against the Hershey Bears, the Phantoms found themselves having a hard time generating much of anything offensively. They tallied 16 and 14 shots in those two games, respsectively.

"Shots with traffic. We worked at it in practice yesterday," Laperriere told InsideAHLHockey.com. "I love that the guys answered the bell. We addressed it yesterday, we worked at it in practice and today we put bodies in front and pucks at the net. If we keep doing that we'll score more than one goal."

Saturday night in Wilkes-Barre, it was a different story. The Phantoms heeded their coaches message in practice Friday, as all but two of the 18 skaters in the lineup for Lehigh Valley recorded a shot on goal - with Cal O'Reilly and Connor Bunnaman leading the way with four apiece, while Tyson Foerster scored on one of his three shots on net.

2. Progress On The Power Play

At first glance, a 1-for-5 showing on the power play isn't anything to write home about. And yes, one or two of those power plays went by the wayside without many chances. But particularly in the middle frame, the power play units looked like they were starting to gel.

Unit 1: Garrett Wilson (net front), Linus Sandin (slot), Morgan Frost (left-wing), Tyson Foerster (right-wing) and Cam York (center point) Unit 2: Isaac Ratcliffe (net front), Samu Tuomaala (slot), Cal O'Reilly (left-wing, half-wall), Gerry Mayhew (right wing) and Adam Clendening (center point)

Perhaps their best power play of the night came in the second period on a man advantage they didn't score on. But they had several Grade-A chances and pressured for the full two minutes. If not for some incredible saves by Filip Lindberg, Lehigh Valley probably wins by a few goals.

On the power play directly after that one, late in the middle frame, the Phantoms cashed in on an odd-man rush after a Penguins' turnover in the neutral zone.

"The guy kind of just gave it right to me, and we skated up and had a 3-on-2 from our blueline," Foerster said, explaining the goal. "Linus [Sandin] kicked it out to [Cam] Yorkie, Yorkie made a good pass to me and I was just able to put it in the net."

All in all a pretty solid effort by the Phantoms in a losing cause. Foerster put it best in his short, but sweet post-game interview.

"We just have to start capitalizing on our chances. I think we played pretty good tonight, we just need to start scoring."

3. History Was Made

Saturday night was a historic moment in the sport of hockey and the American Hockey League (AHL), and not because it was Laperriere's official debut as head coach of the Phantoms.

Katie Guay became the first female referee to officiate an AHL game, and there will be more of that to come as the league added 10 female officials for the 2021-22 season.

"Yeah that was actually really cool to be part of it," Laperriere said after the game. "It's going to be in the history books and I thought she did a fine job out there.  And tonight was just a start. I think the future is bright in that regard. I think there's ten [female officials] this year, and we were lucky enough to the have first one."