Phantoms vs. Binghamton 12-6-08: Second Period

Just as the second period began, they made the announcement that the Flyers are leading Carolina 1-0 on a goal by Mike Richards. They never make the announcement at Phantoms games unless the Flyers are either leading, or have come back from a deficit to tie the score. Moreover, if it was a goal by a Phantoms alumnus, as it was in this case, they make a point of highlighting that fact.

Back to our game. Jeff Szwez opened the period with a NICE hit on a Bingo puck carrier behind the Sens net. :) I like Szwez -- he's scored at some key times this season, he hits, and though his fight record has got both Ws and Ls, he's willing to drop the gloves as needed.

Speaking of people who are willing to take one for the team, Laliberte is back out. I'm not sure how much repair work they had to do on him, but he's on the ice with Matsumoto and Maroon. The D are Bartulis and D'Amour.

Giroux just came charging into the Bingo zone, shadowed by two Senators, and surprised me with his patience. Instead of shooting on net with nobody around to help him out, he did a circle and waited for Ross to arrive. Then Claude passed the puck to HIM instead of takng the shot himself, as he still was being spotted by two defenders. Nice. Ross got a point-blank shot on goal, but unfortunately the puck remained out

Double drat. The Senators just made an east-west play in front of Munroe that resulted in a goal. Drat 'em. The score is 3-2, Phantoms. SOG Phantoms 13, Senators 11. We're nearly nine minutes into the period, so I'm not pleased that we've only gotten one puck on Elliot all period long.

Giroux just came inches, literally, from scoring. ARGH, so close! Elliot mostly stopped the puck, but it got behind him and rolled slowly through the crease. Sorry to say, it rolled past the post and out of harm's way. Moments later, Kane was called for goaltender interference (GEE, maybe those two Sens hounding him helped a bit there), so we are on the PK now.

With 57 seconds left in our PK, a Senator takes a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct and now it's 4 on 4. The SOG are even at 13 apiece.

This PP has been pretty solid so far. We came close to scoring twice, and Ross is making the Sens bananas. So much so, in fact, that we are about to have 13 seconds of 5-on-3 PP time. Yay, us. :) But that line has been out for eons, so Mtsumoto, Maroon, and aliberte are out with Ratchuk and CUrry for the second PP unit. Maroon is stationed at the net to clean up rebounds. No wonder he had three points in the first period. :)

Giroux just took a poke at Regin, after the two of them exchanged words. Regin went to poke back but immediately found our captain Boyd Kane in his face. So that little dispute was rapidly defused. Temporarily, anyway, as when the shift ended, there was a ten-skater conference behind the Phantoms net. The game's getting feisty. We have four minutes and change left in the period, and I would like to see us come back to the Bingo end of the ice... We've spent a bit more time in our end in the past few minutes than I'd like to see.

Ross/Kane/Giroux must have heard me typing, because they carried the puck down here and nearly scored again. Oh, if only there'd been a white-clad player near that rebound! Guenin also took a blast from the point that Elliot had to freeze.

Nice shot, Clackson! :)

The fnal minute of this period has been pond hockey -- end to end to end and back again. Finally, the back-and-forth ended with 9.4 seconds remaining in the period, when the Senators took a penalty. We had a great flurry in those final seconds, particularly Laliberte who came close to ending our PP with a goal, but the period ended. We will have 1:51 remaining of PP time when the third period starts. The score of the game is Phantoms 3, Senators 2, and the SOG are Phantoms 19, Senators 18.