Phantoms Post-Game EXTRA! 2019-20 Season: W-B/Scranton - 1 at Lehigh Valley - 4
ALLENTOWN, Pennsylvania -- The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (1-1-0) found their offensive mojo after being shutout in their season-opening loss to Providence last weekend.
Much like last Saturday's game, the Phantoms were strong on pucks in the early-going and got off to a strong start. The only real difference tonight was that the pucks started going in -- and the flood gates opened!
A common theme tonight among the players and head coach Scott Gordon in post-game interviews was just how deep the current roster is.
Tonight's Game Story -> http://insideahlhockey.com/article/game-story-2019-20-season-w-bscranton-at-lehigh-valley-101119
Three Things
1. Goals, Goals, Goals!
After going 141 minutes and 43 seconds of hockey without scoring any goals, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms offense came through in a big way Friday night against the Penguins.
Isaac Ratcliffe forced a turnover on a Penguins' breakout attempt late in the first period, and Kurtis Gabriel swooped in to tally the first goal of the season - firing one past Casey DeSmith. It seemed like the offense really started clicking from that moment on.
Mikhail Vorobyev finished off a nice cross-ice feed from Cal O'Reilly just after a power play had expired to get the Phantoms ahead by two goals, and they never really looked back from there.
Joel Farabee made his first career pro goal count, and was it ever a thing of beauty. After taking a well-placed stretch pass from Phil Myers, Farabee turned Penguins' defender Pierre-Olivier Joseph inside out before making a move and pulling DeSmith out of his net for an easy finish on the forehand in the second period.
Moments later, Chris Bigras got in on the goal-scoring action too - firing a shot through traffic that appeared to change directions on its way past DeSmith.
2. The Forecheck
The reason the Phantoms were so dominant tonight? The forecheck was tenacious.
Lehigh Valley was able to dictate the game script to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in the opening period - which saw them out shoot the Penguins 16 (!) to 2 - because they were attacking the puck on the forecheck.
Tonight's first goal? Isaac Ratcliffe made a nice play as the first man in, breaking up a Penguins' breakout attempt which led directly to Kurtis Gabriel scooping up the puck and firing one home.
It's a lot easier to be successful when you're making it hard on the opposing teams' defenders - whether it's being physical on the forecheck down low and below the goal line, getting in passing lanes on attempted breakouts or simply making the opposition have to spend their energy just getting the puck out of their own zone.
The Phantoms did a good job of that for a majority of the contest, and it led them to a pretty convincing 4-1 win.
3. Farabee, Frost, Myers
The big name prospects all had pretty strong performances tonight.
Farabee, besides the highlight reel goal, was very active. Though obviously disappointed to have missed making the Flyers' opening night roster, Farabee said after tonight's game he was feeling pretty comfortable down here as opposed to being a little nervous for his pro debut.
Morgan Frost has been snakebitten a little, perhaps, after having a plethora of scoring chances through two games despite being held off the scoresheet. Hopefully, the first one will come sooner than later. It looked like, at times, Frost got caught trying to do a little too much. Still, the fact that he's generating scoring chances with regularity is a positive. The goals should be soon to follow.
Phil Myers had a chance to make the Flyers' opening night lineup, if not at least to make Chuck Fletcher's decision difficult with what to do with the roster on defense to fit him into the NHL lineup. Unfortunately for Myers, his NHL preseason was just "okay" - his own words. Some will forget, but it was Myers with an excellent stretch pass up to Farabee that set up his first career pro goal. Myers just needs to settle in and get back to being a dominant AHL defensemen like he was last season in Lehigh Valley.
Post-Game Reaction
Head coach Scott Gordon
On using full week of practice to get everyone on the same page
I don't think we were that far off last week. We had two solid periods, didn't give up anything, we didn't take a step forward in the third period and build on the first two. I think all of our guys would have liked to get back at it the next day - having to wait six days for our next game. They responded well tonight, played with a lot of energy. I don't recall the last time we gave up less than 20 shots.
On the forecheck, the mentality he wants team to have
We've talked a lot about how we want to play, and having a dog on the bone mentality and having our first forward not try to figure out where the puck is going to go, but to dictate where it's going to go. That's something we did in the second period, but the only problem was I thought we were too perimeter in the offensive zone whereas in the first period we were getting to the net, getting rebounds and that's why I think you saw a huge disparity in shots in the first period. We had probably the same amount of time in the second period but we didn't recover pucks as well as we did in the first period to get the multiple opportunities.
On Farabee
That's a special talent to turn what looked like a meaningless one-on-one into a breakaway situation. Actually, I thought he was just going to get a shot off and then he takes it all the way to the net and dekes out DeSmith. We haven't seen a lot of that. Now with the forwards that have been drafted and are playing here now that's something that I think our fans will get accustomed to and see a lot more regularly than we have in the past.
VIDEO INTERVIEW JOEL FARABEE BELOW
