Phantoms vs. Lake Erie Monsters 1-24-09: Second Period

Bellamy just took a nice shot on goal that caused Bacashihua to leave a huge rebound. If Raduns had been a few feet farther forward, he would have had an opportunity to try and one-time that rebound in. Just one of those "luck of the draw" things. Now it's a minute later, and Zarb, the newly christened forward, is on a rush with Ross and Maroon. He had a chance at a shot on goal, but it hgot hung up in the skates of a couple of Monsters players. Hey, give him an E for effort, as I'm not sure how often it is that he's the first guy arriving at the opposing net with the puck.

Watch it, Muny, the Monsters are starting to buzz in our end. We need to get a clear or a breakout soon... Aw, crud. Not soon enough. With 14:26, the Monsters tie the score at 1-1. Phooey. SOG are Phantoms 12, Monsters 15. It appears that Lake Erie called a timeout. It wasn't announced, but Lake Erie's timeout count on the board has been decremented to zero, and we did see the 30-second countdown clock right after the goal was scored.

With 13:39 remaining in the period, the Phantoms now have the opportunity to kill a penalty. Matsumoto is being charged with slashing. The fans beg to differ. ;)

Ross, Syvret, Laliberte, and Parent are out. Ross is now ruishing the puck up the ice, and whoooa, I think we just got away with a too many men situation. I saw five white jerseys plus the goalie, and we are killing a penalty. Lake Erie had the puck anyway, so maybe that's why we didn't get penalized. Either way, no harm done to either team.

At the end of the penalty, SOG are Phantoms 12, Monsters 17. So we were pretty effective at killing that infraction off.

Matsumoto is in great form tonight -- it seems like every other time I see him, he's lugging the puck up the ice at full speed. Here's to seeing him get some Nice Results in the box score for his efforts.

Aha -- the Lake Erie timeout was just restored to the clock. I guess someone hit a button by mistake. This explains why the timeout was never announced -- it wasn't really a timeout. (Calling a timeout immediately after your own team calls a goal would be a bizarre bit of logic, at best.)

Arrrgh -- thanks to a couple of genius fans who were coming back from the concession stand and blocking people's line of sight, I couldn't see exactly what led up to the Monsters' goal with 7:57 left in the period. All I know is that play went pretty much straight in on our net, and the next thing I could see was our goal light going on. 2-1, Bad Guys.

On a lighter note, I just turned around to check who's in the press box and I do believe I see Garrett Klotz sitting there with other scratched guys. Haaa-le-freaking-LUJAH.

We are having issues getting the freaking puck out again. Bellamy tried and nearly succeeded, we collapsed in front of our goalmouth to keep the puck out of the net, and Bartulis freaking BURIED a guy in the corner. Finally, we got out and earned ourselves an offensive-zone draw. With 2:12 left in the period, it would behoove us to hurry and get the equalizer before the intermission.

I like Sirianni in this game. He keeps creating opportunities to either score a goal or earn an assist. If he keeps it up, I honestly think he wil get results.

OK, now it's crunch time -- just under a mnute remains in the period. Raduns, Matsumoto, Bellamy, Bartulis, and Curry are out. That's a slight tweak to the third line (Matsumoto swapped with Clackson). OMG, coach is onto something. We just got a trainload of opportunities from Matsumoto, Bellamy, Parent (who came on after the faceoff), Laliberte (ditto). GAAAH, so close to putting a goal in. But the clock was not our friend, and the period ended with the SOG Phantoms 17, Monsters 21, and the score Monsters 2, Phantoms 1.