Phanatoms at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton 11-26-08: Second Period

The audio was most definitely ahead of the video by a few moments. The announcer gave a first-period recap on camera, and it was clear that the words were audible shortly before they could be lipread on the video.

MUNY, what a save! He made a phenomenal lateral move to stop a stuff attempt on the wraparound. The subsequent scrum in the crease wound up with Munroe freezing the puck, but with most if not all of him in the net. However, no goal light went on, and there was no clear way to determine that the puck was all the way over the line, so play resumed with the score 1-0 Phantoms.

Now we're on the PP again. OH ouch, a slapshot from Matsumoto nailed a Penguin squarely and he went down. But he managed to clear the puck before making his way to the bench. It was Mormina, and while I don't think he was injured, he's probably going to have quite a bruise for a souvenir. Near the end of the PP, the Pens nearly got a SH break, but DeSantis prevented it.

No sooner do we return to even strength, then the Phantoms go shorthanded. Bellamy goes for high-sticking, 3:39 into the period. Yet again, Guenin proceeds to block a shot. I wish I had a dime for every puck Guenin blocks.

POWE goes POW while we're shorthanded! Berkhoel went to the corner to play the puck, but the puck went right past him and bounced off the back boards in the zone where the goalie can't touch it. Out comes the puck, into the crease, and Powe is right there to slam-dunk it into the completely empty net. 2-0 Phantoms!

And again, we're going to HAVE to make plays like this to make sure we put something past this goalie, because he IS a solid netminder, miscue notwithstanding.

Oh, crumbs. Stupid delay-of-game rule. Curry clears the puck over the glass within seconds of our previous penalty's end. Back to the PK we go

MOVE, ya knucklehead ref! The darn zebra got in our way and we couldn't clear the puck. OK, NOW we get the puck the heck out.

Late in the penalty, Raduns is in a fight with Taffe, so to speak. It looks like Taffe and Minard started out by double-teaming him, and ends up with a wrestling match between Raduns and Minard. Taffe gets the extra two for roughing, so we are going on a PP within 11 seconds.

MAN. Well, if we had a near-miss when Munroe ended up in the net early in the period, the Pens just had their near-miss now. There was a huge PP flurry of shots, and by the time the whistle blew, it was under Berkhoel and right ON the goal line. There's no video replay in the AHL, the more's the pity, so play resumed and soon afterward, the Pens' penalty expired.

Mormina's back on the ice, so he's recovered from his encounter with the slapshot.

Meanwhile, Munroe and Berkhoel are trading solid saves. This game is evolving into a NICE goalie duel.

Engelland is in a fight with Szwez and he's winning. That one was pretty decisive in favor of Engelland, who landed about four consecutive rights to Szwez's face. Props to Szwez for keeping his feet throughout and managing a takedown at the end.

Powe came close to scoring... sort of. It went off Powe's hand, and off his stomach, but then on the replay, it looked like Berkhoel regained possession and somehow redirected the puck into the net. However, the ref went POW and disallowed the goal, so the score remains 2-0 Phantoms.

The Phantoms just had an extended stay in front of the Wilkes-Barre net, to the point where the announcer felt compelled to state, "This is not a power play". The Penguins fnally got down to the Philly end and made some noise, but when the Phantoms regained posession, we went barreling down the ice and scored for a third time. It was a mad scramble in front after Matsumoto took the initial shot, but it appears that they're crediting the goal to Laliberte with assists to Bellamy and Matsumoto.

Munroe had to be on his toes, as the Penguins came out of that faceoff with guns blazing. A great lateral move on his part kept the puck out, but we took a holding-the-stick penalty and wound up shorthanded. What's more, we're lucky that the next puck that went over the glass deflected off a stick before exiting the ice, because we'd have been down two men instead of just one. I really like the way we're defending diuring this penalty kill. Giroux and Ross got a Sh 2-on-2 -- they didn't get a scoring chance, but they killed off a few extra seconds of penalty Next up, Raduns got a shorthanded shot on goal. He didn't score, but again, the more time we spend in the other end, the less time we'll spend trying to keep the puck out of OUR net.

The period is over, with 20 seconds remaining on the Penguins PP. The Phantoms lead the game 3-0. SOG: Phantoms 33, Penguins 15.

Holy cow! The Phantoms have an entire games' worth of SOG in two periods. Here's hoping we keep this dominant performance up, because SURE as heck the Pens' coach is going to have a few things to say to them during this intermission.