Phantoms @ Hamilton Bulldogs 1-6-09: Third Period

There has been a ton of back-and-forth during this period. That tends to make me nervous, because historically neither the Phantoms nor the Flyers have been teams prone to playing that sort of river hockey. There have been a lot of examples of this kind of play in recent Phantoms games; however, none of said games have resulted in wins. So I would just as soon see us find some ways to control the pace of the game enough to prevent these end-to-end-to-end sequences from happening.

Case in point: after a great chance by Maroon, the Bulldogs brought it back and Kemp, on a shot that may have been deflected, increased Hamilton's lead to 4-1. They did give Kemp credt for the goal, so apparently the powers-that-be have decided that the shot was not deflected. Either way, the hole that the Phantoms need to climb out of has just gotten a bit deeper.

We're currently shorthanded, with Bartulis in the box. I'm pleased to see us clearing the puck with authority, repeatedly. Boy, do I welcome the return of THAT aspect of our game.

TESLAK -- what a great couple of blocks he made at the very end of that PK! Good job!

Meanwhile, on my TV screen, the Flyers are going into a shootout vs. the Capitals. Have I mentioned recently that I BLEEPING LOATHE SHOOTOUTS? I see no logic to ending a team game with a one-on-one skills competition. So as far as I'm concerned, the Flyers/Caps game ended in a tie, and they are competing for a bonus point in a skills competition.

OK, then, back to the Phantoms game. There's a surprisingly long pause on the ice while Jeff Szwez gets sent off for slashing. I don't know if it was a TV timeout or what it was, but that stoppage in play took a lot longer than I'd expected.

Teslak just made another pair of great saves, both on Lehoux. Who, speaking of Lehoux, just got sent off for slashing. We'll be playing at 4 on 4 for a little while, with 4:17 left in the third period. After that, we'll have a 1:15 PP of our own.

Maroon to Clackson, whose shot gets stopped, but MAROOOOON gets the rebound and buries one with 44.8 seconds remaining! The score is now 4-2. Maroon gets the goal, assisted by Clackson and Ratchuk.

With six seconds remaining, we get coincidental minors to Maroon and Beauregard.

Unfortunately, we could draw no closer to tying the game than that. We go down 4-2 to the Hamilton Bulldogs. The Flyers lost also, 2-1 in a shootout. So this wasn't an ideal night for Philly hockey fans, for sure.

We have a few more contests left in this road trip, where I hope we will work out the bugs in our game and break this seven-game winless streak.