Phantoms Post-Game EXTRA! 2019-20 Season: Hershey - 2 at Lehigh Valley - 1 (12/6/19)

ALLENTOWN, PA -- The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (10-9-1-4) fell to the Hershey Bears (10-9-2-3) by a score of 2-1 on Friday night at PPL Center. Lehigh Valley was outshot 37-26 in the contest and now have dropped two straight games.

Friday night's game story -> http://insideahlhockey.com/article/game-story-2019-20-season-hershey-at-lehigh-valley-12619

Three Things

1. Power Play Improvement?

On five power play opportunities, including one five-on-three chance in the third period, the Phantoms were held scoreless yet again.

With that said, there were some positives with the man advantage over the course of Friday night’s game.

For starters, Andy Welinski’s goal was scored one second after the Phantoms’ power play expired late in the first period. Even on the 5-on-3, the team was able to get plenty of quality chances but the Bears penalty kill did an excellent job of getting down to block and deflect shots away from the net.

Coach Scott Gordon echoed this sentiment after the game.

“Every play that we ran off of [the 5-on-3 power play] was executed properly, we just didn't score.”

2. Beck Malenstyn’s "hit" on Mark Friedman

There wasn’t much physicality in Friday night’s contest until the 5:55 mark of the third period.

While going to play a puck loose puck by the Bears’ bench after Hershey failed to maintain position in their offensive zone, Phantoms defenseman Mark Friedman was elbowed in the head by forward Beck Malenstyn. Malenstyn received just a two-minute minor penalty for the hit.

As someone who usually gives the refs the benefit of the doubt on a missed call every now and again, it is inexcusable how Malenstyn wasn’t assessed a major penalty for the check to head.

It’s not as if it was a borderline call that you’d need to watch the replay a handful of times to see; it was a blatant elbow to the face.

Regardless of Friedman’s status -- we don’t know his status going forward -- Malenstyn should be facing some disciplinary action from the league for that hit.

3. Milestone Alert - Reece Willcox

Friday night marked Lehigh Valley Phantoms defenseman Reece Willcox’s 200th AHL game. He’s a player who we may not talk about as much as we should in these parts, but he’s carved out a really nice role on this team as a steady and dependable stay-at-home defender.

“You pretty much know what you're going to get every night with [Willcox],” Gordon said. “There's not a lot of flash [in his game] but there's certainly strong positional play. I think he has a lot of the right intentions in how he prepares and plays the game.”

The former fifth round selection in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft reflected on his time with the Phantoms to this point after the game.

“I'm grateful. We've been pretty fortunate to play with the great organization for the last four years,” Willcox said. “I'm playing hockey for a living. It doesn't get much better than that.”