Phantoms vs. Albany: postgame musings

WOW, what a great game the Phantoms played! It was physical, we were solid both at even strength and special teams, and we came out with the W. Nice. :)

River Rats fans must dread the name "Munroe", given the number of shutout minutes he's pitched against them since the spring. Have a look at the pregame notes and see his stats vs. Albany since the 5-OT marathon game in last year's postseason. :)

Going back to last season’s playoffs, Munroe has allowed just one goal in his last 296:33 of action against the River Rats. He didn’t allow a goal from the 17:14 mark of the second period in Game 5, which went into the fifth overtime, until 10:38 of overtime in Game 6 – a scoreless streak of 176:22. After that Game 6 OT goal, Munroe proceeded to shut out the Rats in Game 7. His scoreless streak at the Times Union Center is 165:44.

So let's see... he held the Rats scoreless for 176:22 during the playoffs, and in three full games since then (Game 7 and also this year's regular season) he hasn't let in another Albany goal. We're talking MICROSCOPIC GAA numbers here, folks! :) Under any other circumstances, I'd have thought that we'd do well to let Aubin get his confidence back by playing a struggling opponent, but not when the alternative is Munroe vs. the River Rats. Go, Muny! Great job!

On the Clackson open-ice hit... that was a legal check. The Albany player in question's helmet did go flying off into space, but some of these guys wear the darn things way too loose anyway. Sage advice for the day: don't carry the puck into the Phantoms zone with your head down, PERIOD. Clackson's not the only guy we have who will happily check you halfway into next week under those circumstances. Incidentally, even though I do believe that the River Rat (#11 -- I need to look his name up) was honestly rocked by the hit, that didn't stop him from picking his head up, looking around to see if there was a call, and then putting his head back down before the trainer arrived. So he definitely had at least some of his wits about him. Which is good, because once I saw the airborne red helmet sailing in the opposite direction of the airborne red-jerseyed player, I was concerned that the guy was going to hit his bare head on the ice when he landed. Big hits = good. Players from either team in the ER = bad. So in this case, I have no problem with him being alert enough to peer around and see what was going on.

I was glad to see a nice, solid win for the Good Guys, to help exorcise the nightmarish memory of Saturday's game. On to Friday and another home game. If we play then like we did today, we're going to be darn tough to beat.

Here's the box score from today's game. When the recap is up, I'll post that link as well.