Phantoms at Hartford: Third Period

Aubin just made a NICE glove save to start the period. We won the faceoff but turned the freaking thing over in our own end, and darn near paid for the error. Aubin and his glove got the job done there.

Man, every time we get the thing out of our zone, it seems to be coming right back in. (We're not quite two minutes into the third period.) But soon afterward, we have a PP coming up, so with any luck we'll control the tempo for the next two minutes or until we score, preferably the latter. :)

DOWNIE shoots, possibly tipped by Kane or a Hartford player, and the score is tied! We cashed that PP in for a goal. Great job, guys, now keep it up!

Oh, doggone it! The same Pack player that the announcers are thinking deflected in our goal just scored on a screened shot, within a shift or two of our tally, to retake the lead for Hartford. GRRR... 2-1, bad guys.

With 11:13 left in the third, Soryal is about to fight with Curry. Soryal is the same one that fought Clackson earlier. It was mostly a wrestling match with sporadic punches being thrown, until Soryal dragged Curry off balance and off his feet. Then Soryal got in a few extra punches before the linesman arrived to put an end to the proceedngs. This was precipitated by a Phantoms hit on Soryal, which generated a ten-player conference in front of the Hartford bench. Hartford will come out of all this with a two-minute penalty kill.

OK, Phantoms, get that PP going again. We seem to be really on tonight when we have the man advantage. We have been playing a PP formation with one man high in the slot (Syvret). We haven't always had success with this, as if we give the puck up we tend to see it cleared out by way of the boards. But tonight, it's been working pretty well.

Hartford did kill the penalty, but we remained in Hartford's end a while longer controlling the action until Hartford finally got it out. THIS is what I want to see more of.

Downie and his line have been doing some good things all game long. Every time I hear his name, it seems it's because he's on the attack and is creating a chance. He may even have scored our goal, depending on which player deflected his shot on goal.

4:27 left. We need to start screening Wiikman in addition to stationing someone at the post to clean up rebounds. He needs to start being unable to see the pucks that are coming at him.

Powerplay with just under 4 minutes remaining in the period. Time for us to bear down and tie this score. We are doing well keeping them from clearing the puck out, but as long as they are pinning it behind their net we're not doing anything constructive.

1:48 remaining, and we're back at even strength. The Phantoms have called timeout.

To my surprise, we have pulled the goalie already (with nearly two minutes remaining). I guess Paddock has seen how we have dominated with the extra skater so he's hoping to take advantage of it.

I'm pleased that for the most part, we are controlling the puck or retaking possession shortly after losing the puck. However, we're not setting up and getting much in the way of scoring chances.

Aaaand the clock runs out. :( We lose the game 2-1. It's a pity that we have three good scorers absent from our lineup tonight -- they could only have helped our offense. But I like the fact that we showed a lot of jump on the PP. Those parts of the game included some of the best play we've turned in to date on this young season. Good. The way AHL can be penalty-fests, if we turn into a dangerous PP team, it bodes well for us.

Here is the box score of this game from the AHL site.

The stars of the game were:

#3: Boyd Kane
#2: Bobby Sanguinetti (Hartford)
#1: Mikka Wiikman (Hartford) -- an obvious choice, as he was excellent in this game.

I'll post the game summary when I see it on the Phantoms site. Right now, they only have the box score available.

We have a 1 PM(!!!) game in Albany tomorrow. Here's hoping we can take our frustration out on the River Rats. I'd like to see us fill the net on somebody; we're overdue.