Phantoms vs. Worcester Sharks: First Period

Daniel Briere is playing his first rehab game with the Phantoms, and he is in the starting line. Jared Ross, normally a center, has been moved to wing for the occasion. Ross still wears the C, due to Boyd Kane's injury.

Our injured guys include Nate Raduns, who got hurt over the weekend.

Claude Lemieux is wearing number 32 for Worcester. Here's hoping that if he makes his usual pest of himself, that we give back as good as we get (without being called for retaliation infractions.)

The Phantoms were being outshot 5-2 when we opened the scoring, early in the first period. Sean Curry did the honors.

Scott Munroe is in goal for the Phantoms, with Michael Teslak as backup. I don't know how this bodes for the return of Niittymaki to the Flyers lineup. I do know that Aubin is still not healthy. Frankly, that makes me a tad nervous, as he was backing up Teslak for the whole road trip (minus one period). If he's still hurt, IMO Aubin should not be backing up; he should be in the press box. Otherwise, in case of injury to our starter, we'll be replacing one dented goalie with another, and that's not a solution any sane team would employ.

Clackson and Moore just got in the World's Shortest Fight, none of which could I see over the people standing up. But neither guy looked particularly the worse for wear so I will presume, unless a Youtube clip proves otherwise, that someone lost an edge and went down early on.

In the time since scoring our goal, we have continued to be outshot. The current tally of shots, as we go on our first PP of the night, is Sharks 11, Phantoms 4, with the third of those being our goal.

Briere came out with our second PP unt, along with Maroon and Nodl. They promptly increased our goal total to 2, as Maroon scored with assists from Nodl and Briere. There was a huge cheer for Briere's name, as there was when he was announced as a starter. Briere is about as down-to-earth of a guy as I've seen in here, btw... He came up the tunnel high-fiving every fan's hand that was extended in his direction (most of which belonged to kids). :) Some sports stars might have forgotten where they "came from", so to speak, but Briere Gets It.

SCOOOORE, and once again it was a tally from the line centered by Briere. :) Ths time it was Ross, assisted by Syvret and Nodl. 3-0 GOOD GUYS, and it's so darn nice to be able to write about a multi-goal lead at last!

Now we're back on the Pecooooo Power Play and SCOOOORE -- Ross again! :) Assists this time were from Maroon and Syvret.

Wow, wow, wow, what a period we just had! The SOG are Phantoms 9, Sharks 14... But no fewer than FOUR of our shots found the net. The score at the first intermission is Phantoms 4, Sharks 0.