Phantoms vs. Lowell Devils 1-16-09: Second Period

The good news is, Maroon did come out of the tunnel at the start of the second period. The bad news is, in the first two minutes of the period, Ratchuk was interfered with, got slammed hard into the boards, and required the trainer's assistance. The ensuing man advantage led to our third PP goal of the night, with a goal from Syvret from the point Assists to Briere and DeSantis.

Ratchuk is still in the game, however. More power to him.

We killed off a holding penalty to Maroon; that's the good news. The not-so-good news is that we get to do it again, this time for Bartulis and holding-the-stick. Briere and Ross are out with Parent and Syvret. Ross hounded a Devil all the way back into Lowell's end, then punctuated it with a thump to the guy before play headed back to our end.

The Devils did manage to bring their deficit within two goals, late in the period. However, I think we can get that goal back if we appy ourselves, particuarly if we happen to get another man advantage. Our PP has been en fuego in these past two games. I hope we can keep up the PP scoring when Briere returns to the Flyers.

WE just had a big scrum over in the corner to Scott Munroe's right, of which I could see none. However, when the dust cleared, we had Clackson and Maroon in the sin bin for roughing, along with one Devil (Fraser). So we are killing a penalty during the final three minutes of the second period. Ross and Briere are out with Parent and Syvret. Unfortunately, our inability to clear the puck cost us, and the Pantoms lead is now whittled down to one goal. 4-3, Good Guys, and we ha better start inflicting some damage on the Devils side of the ice. We have only gotten two shots on goal so far in this period, and we only have 2:08 left until the intermission.

Blah. Too many men on the ice -- that's all we need, to go shorthanded with 1:28 left in the freaking period. OK, Phantoms, play like you mean it, because we only have Briere in the lineup until the end of this game. We can't depend on having him to mesmerize opponents every time he sets foot on the ice.

Matsumoto and Nodl came out on a shorthanded break. Matsumoto's shot missed the net, but at least we spent time in the Lowell end. I'll take anything that chews up PK time without doing us harm.

There goes the end of the period. SOG are Phantoms 11 (a grand total of TWO shots in the second period), Devils 28. Color me Not Happy about the amount of time we didn't spend on the attack during this period. Yes, one of our shots went in. Still, it's not good that our opponent's goalie only stopped ONE puck in the entire 20-minute frame.

However, we do lead where it counts, on the scoreboard, 4-3. In order to remain in the lead for the rest of the game, we wil have to offer more of a challenge to Lowell than we did in the past period.

We have 32 seconds of penalty time left to serve at the start of the third period.