Forwards Olle Lycksell and Tanner Laczynski led the charge last night–along wth goalie Felix Sandstrom–as the Phantoms dispatched a talented Hartford squad 4-1. Tonight the mighty mighty Hershey Bears are in town for Valley Youth House Night.
About Last Night
In yesterday’s column we noted the relative unknown of the officials crew. We didn’t look it up, nor will we now, but for sure they were out of their depth. There were many stoppages, which isn’t completely unusual, but then conferences about, seemingly, every minor call. At times, they seemed scared to call any penalties at all. “Let them play” is a common refrain for fans, but sometimes in hockey if the officials don’t take control of the game, the players will police it themselves. Also not a huge problem from the fan side if you like the rough and tumble, but it can slow the proceedings down a bit.
Olle had two big goals last night and was on his way to a certain form of natural hat trick. Tanner had a couple assists and Felix had a strong showing in the net. The big deal was a fight between Phantoms captain Garrett Wilson and the Hartford starting goalie. Every time I watch the replay I see more things. On first replay I was sure that Dominigue deserved to be ejected from the game, but there’s a bit more back-and-forth than I initially saw on the arena replay. Below is the highlights package from the team–watch it a couple times and you can see where calmer heads were never going to prevail.
Lines
Here’s how they lined up last night:
28 Lycksell – 9 Laczynski – 27 Tuomaala
17 Wilson – 91 Desnoyers – 20 Marody
16 Avon – 22 Gardner – 19 Allison
24 Brooks – 56 Gaucher – 15 Bellerive
6 Andrae – 12 Attard
98 Mete – 5 Samson
8 Millman – 37 Ginning
32 Sandstrom (40 Petersen)
Sctatches:
2 Helge Grans
3 Adam Karashik
7 Louie Belpedio
10 Evan Polei
13 Brendan Furry
14 Zayde Wisdom
Notes: As discussed yesterday, Grans and Polei have been injured for some time, and I’ve been unable to uncover a timetable for return. Belpedio and Wisdom I haven’t heard anything. The top line from last night certainly put in the work–but every line was noticeable and was contributing to the effort. The ‘Double-A’ boys Attard and Andrae were united once again and didn’t cause any damage (to our team).
GAME DAY!
It’s Valley Youth House Night. Please bring along your donation of diapers and/or wipes to support the effort, and a chance at a prize might be yours! It’s also SaturdayNight Hockey Live, so we’ll have a musical act during the second intermission.
Doors 6:00PM (Premier Members 5:45), Show 7:05PM, Hockey 7:18PM
Traffic and parking should be easier than yesterday, despite a possible sell-out.
This game is getting close to selling out. Expect crowds and grab your tickets before you head downtown. There are very few deals on the secondary market.
Playoff football is on TV; plan your pre-game location to watch if that’s an interest of yours. Most downtown bars and restaurants should have the game on for the first game–the second game is Peacock only, and might be more of a challenge for some establishments.
Ursus arctos horribilis
The mighty Hershey Bears arrive at 7th and Hamilton tonight with a 29-7-0 record, heads and shoulders above every other AHL team, for the defending champions. On the season the Phantoms are 1-3-2 versus the brown team, while from their side they are 5-1-0. Hershey has won the two overtime games between the teams, hence the record discrepancy. At the PPL Center, the Phantoms are 0-2 versus the Bears this season. As you might expect, Hershey is good at everything hockey, across the board. Notable for this match-up is that Hershey is among the least-penalized team in the entire league. As far as players we know, Mike Vecchione is on this team and usually does well against us. Matt Strome is on the team as well. Both their goalies are good–31 Clay Stevenson is outstanding.
OFFICIALS
Referee Mason Riley (#79)
Referee Chris Waterstradt (#88)
Linesperson Patrick Dapuzzo (#57)
Linesperson Chandler Yakimowicz (#60)
MEDIA KIT
What To Watch
- Watch for Cal Peterson in net. Can he play as well as Sandstrom last night? Is it time to go to primary and secondary goalies rather than splitting the duties evenly?
- Can we hang? The Phantoms beat a quality Hartford team last night, albeit one who hasn’t been top notch recently. Hershey might be the 800-lb bear in the room, but if anyone knows how to play them, it’s the Pennsylvania teams that see them 400 times per season.
- Watch to see if the penalties are even. The Phantoms have to play a relatively clean game to win–or else just fight it out of them. The penalties last night were mostly the rough stuff and an officiating crew that wasn’t representative, so we can’t draw any conclusions there. Just clean it up.
- Watch to see if every line and pair can contribute. They all flashed last night and we need that.
- Watch to see if Wisdom or Belpedio are in the lineup. If not, we can probably surmise injury of some type.
- Watch to see if Attard and Andrae are paired again. How do they look? What’s the +/- after the game? Do they get switched during the game? Two young puck movers together scares me a bit; they can get themselves into some trouble especially against a team like Hershey.
Up Next
The Phantoms will be in Rochester on Wednesday. Premier Member watch party at Chickie’s that night, I believe. Then, next weekend they will be in Cleveland for a pair of games.
Next home games are six in a row enveloping All Star Weekend in San Jose, CA (Samu Tuomaala is our representative): January 26, 27, 31, February 2,3,9.
See you at the arena,
@Kram207
For old times, long version. Note: bad language.
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