Phantoms vs. Lake Erie Monsters 1-24-9: First Period

Scratches: Guenin, Klotz (no surprise there, after last night's game, poor guy), Kane, Hersley, Szwez.
Starters: Munroe, Syvret, Parent, Ross, Laliberte, Maroon

I was told prior to the game that Garrett Klotz is planning to attend tonight's game. You can bet I'll be looking in the press box to see if he's there. Heck, I'll just be happy to find out that he's out of the hospital, period and end of sentence. Anything beyond that, just barely 24 hours after a punch to the head caused him to go into convulsions on the ice, would be amazing.

I had a word with the people at the Information Desk last night, regarding an error in the "Games Left" countdown banners.They were showing one more game left than we actually have. They must have double-checked their math and realized their mistake, because tonight's game has the correct number on it. :)

WOW! 25 seconds into the game Laliberte scored on our first shot Assists to Ross and (I missed the secondary assist). I'll see if I can get the secondary assist from the box score later.

That was a great start to the game, obviously. Even better was that Munroe came up with some acrobatics to keep the puck out, wHhen Lake Erie had THEIR first scoring opportunity of the game.

I keep turning around to see which of our scratched players are in the press box. The only one I see in there so far is Boyd Kane.

Good grief, the names on Lake Erie's jerseys are in a stupendously hard-to-read font. I do, however, see Jesse Boulerice standing by the boards in front of us, at an angle that makes his name easy to pick out. Boulerice is another one of our alumni whom I like. But as I said about Marty Murray last night, Jesse's welcome to have a quiet game tonight. :)

That goal has been our only shot so far. With 13 minutes and change left, we have faced 4 shots and gotten one puck on net. Ha ha, just as I finished that sentence, we got a great scoring chance. Make that "two pucks on net".

Zarb is sitting with the forwards, even though he is normally a defenseman. I guess that tells us who is filling in for Klotz while he's injured.

Boy, Munroe has been extremely sharp in these first nine minutes. He's had to be. Lake Erie keeps coming up with point-blank shots. We4 are going to have to stop giving up opportunities like that as well as starting to create more chances of our own. Munroe has been solid, but the law of averages does not favor any team that gives its opponent one prime chance after another for an entire game.

Freakin' 25 from Lake Erie just deliberately broke Clackson's stick in two. No call -- he got away with one there. (Sorry, but my middle-aged eyes can't read the darn name on the jersey when he's on the opposite side of the ice.)

Zarb, Ryan, and Beaulieu are out -- I'm presuming that they're our fourth line tonght.

Holy cow... How long have we been playing without a break??? We have 6:33 left in the period, the game is still going, and it's only 7:21. This is without doubt the longest I have ever seen a pro hockey game move without a stoppage.

FINALLY, with 5:55 left, Munroe makes a superb stop to freeze the puck. I should hope that the officials are going to take advantage of the break to get a drink of water or something. *I'm* tired and I wasn't the one skating end to end for the past several minutes.

Raduns, Clackson, and Bellamy are our third line, as they were last night following Klotz's injury. Ratchuk and Curry are a D pair. So are Syvret/Parent and Bartulis/DeSantis.

Nodl makes a nice defensive play to take a rebound out of harm's way. He gets it to Clackson, who starts a rush, though he doesn't make it all the way into the Monsters' end.

We've done a good job of evening out the SOG. With 1:45 left, the Phantoms have 8 shots compared to the Monsters' 9. Good -- I'm tired of seeing us get massively outshot. Let's keep the shot totals this close, shall we? ;)

Say, unless I miss my guess, we haven't had any penalties called yet in this game. At the end of the first period, the SOG are Phantoms 9, Monsters 11. The score is Phantoms 1, Monsters 0.