“All I want for Christmas is some defensive acumen.”
Here We Are
The Phantoms come into tonight’s mid-week beer night tilt versus the brown team with an overall record of 12-10-2-1. That’s good enough for fifth place in the AHL Atlantic. As a home team, the Hamilton Street Heroes are 6-3-2. While they are 0-1-1 on the streak, the last 10 show out at 5-4-1.
After sweeping Charlotte at home December 9 and 10, the Phantoms won in OT up in Providence, lost in OT at home on Teddy Night, and surrendered three third-period goals in a 5-3 loss to Hershey Sunday afternoon.
Team Notes:
Player Notes
Fs Lycksell and Bellows made a quick trip to Philadelphia to support the big team, but have since returned.
G Pat Nagle returns in a swap for G Nolan Maier, with Reading.
G Grosenick is said to have more of a long-term injury. For now we’ll be moving forward with Ersson and some combination of Nagle and Maier.
D Wyatte Wylie is said to be nursing an upper body injury. He did play Saturday night.
F Ratcliffe was injured a few games ago. He suffered a collapsed lung a couple years ago, and speculation is that could be related in some way.
Lines from Sunday:
28 Lycksell – 51 Anisimov – 71 Foerster
17 Wilson – 91 Desnoyers – 21 Bellows
24 Brooks – 9 O’Reilly – 25 Marody
15 Bellerive – 18 J Cates – 42 Hodgson
4 Zamula – 47 Belpedio
44 Connauton – 12 Attard
37 Ginning – 6 Hogberg
30 Ersson (73 Maier)
Royal Report
Reading is 15-6-1 on the season, good enough for third place in the ECHL Eastern Conference, North.
GAME DAY!
It’s $2 draft night for happy hour at the arena, and the Hershey Bears are in town!
Get your 16-oz Miller Lite or Lager at select stands from arena-opening until the puck drops. Who is complaining about the late puck drop tonight, huh? The first-place Bears are 4-0 versus the Phantoms thus far this season, 3-0 in Hershey and 1-0 at the PPL Center. Old friend Mike Vecchione has been doing us dirty in this series this season.
No new parking news to share. I’ve got an angle on the parking overlords tonight and hope to get a win for the first time since October. I will also note that the DaVinci construction at the Farr Lot has made the Spiral a difficult parking choice thanks to the lack of easy walking lanes. It’s also somewhat more dangerous walking along Linden as cars are pulling out. Use caution, all.
Good seats still remain for tonight’s game. Video and Audio broadcasts are available via the usual suspects.
OFFICIALS
Referee Reid Anderson (#49)
Referee Laura White (#5)
Linesperson John Rey (#16)
Linesperson Patrick Dapuzzo (#57)
MEDIA KIT (Stats, rosters, etc.)
What To Watch
- Watch for Ersson in net, and watch to see if the defense in front of him can hold up.
- Keep an eye on the Connauton/Attard pair. Something tells me they may be responsible for consternation regarding the acumen of the defense as a whole. I could be wrong.
- Watch to see what kind of jump the Phantoms have tonight. They have to be sick of losing to the brown team, don’t they?
- Watch to see what kind of excuse they can come up with for not providing me with as many $2 beers as I want. Possible candidates: The tap is not working, we ran out of beer, you have to go outside to find the one beer stand selling $2 beer, we ran out of cups, no the line starts over there, we don’t take cash, we don’t take credit cards, sir this is a Wendy’s.
- Watch Artie Anisimov. Watch for him to be in the right place at the right time. That cat just knows how to hockey. Glad to have him.
- Watch to see if that Brooks/OReilly/Marody line is together again tonight. I can’t see any reason they shouldn’t have multiple goals.
Up Next
The Phantoms will be in Springfield Friday night, then return for another mid-week beer game next Wednesday versus Bridgeport.
See you in the beer line,
@kram207