Phantoms vs. Hershey Bears 2-6-09: First Period

The good news: Patrik Hersley is in the lineup for the first time since October. The other news: J-S Aubin is in the lineup for the first time since December/the second time since getting injured on Black Friday, and gave up a goal on Hershey's third shot of the game. The Phantoms trail 1-0.

Scratched players: Klotz and Szwez are in the press box, along with a third guy whose face I can't see well enough to ID. We do have seven D in the lineup, though: Hersley, Syvret, DeSantis, Guenin, Ratchuk, and Curry. (Parent is up with the Flyers, as is Ross.) Beaulieu and Ryan appear to be our fourth-line forward pair tonight.

Hersley has just gone off for slashing, so we are on our first PK of the night. Matsumoto, Laliberte, Guenin, and Syvret are out. In the absence of Ross, Guenin has our second A. Next up, Kane/Nodl and Bartulis/Guenin. After that, Raduns/Kane and Curry/Bartulis. With half the penalty gone, we have gien up seven SOG and taken one.

Aaaand with 12:14 left in the period, a Bear fires a shot from the right post and makes the score 2-0. I would have thought that maybe a road game would have been an easier situation to start a guy who hasn't seen game time in over a month, as the home crowd is Not Pleased. On the other hand, maybe Munroe needs a break as the flu has been running rampant on both the Phantoms and the Flyers.

Two minutes/one SOG later, the score is 3-0 Bears. There's a "We want Muny" chant going on. I feel terrible for Aubin. This season must be flat-out murder on him. Between having some troublesome outings while healthy, and then being sidelined for pushing two months after an injury, this season so far is probably going to be chalked up by him as a half-season span he'd like to erase from his memory. Or maybe as an AFGO: "Another F[rea]king Growth Opportunity".

Ah, there goes OUR first goal. Matsumoto, assisted by Nodl, brings down the rain of teddy bears from the crowd. It was our second shot on goal of the game.
Matsumoto, Laliberte and Maroon are back out on the ice, as there was a break in play while the bears were collected.

Now the Bears goalie is skating to the bench, so I can see we are about to kill Penalty Number Two on the night. Sirianni is heading to the box for high-sticking. Raduns and Kane are with Syvret and Guenin. Guenin just got away with one, shoving Oslala (why isn't he with the Capitals?) in front of our net. Nate has a broken stick, though, so he's getting a tad creative.

We did manage to kill that penalty without incident, so yay on us. We did, however, nearly give up another goa which appeared to hit the crossbar and landin the crease. I seriously thought the thing was in from this angle, but the ref was doing the washout signal the entire time so I guess not. Good.

WE just clanged one off the post. Beans. Would have been nice to close the gap a tad more.

Aubin is right back to the form that he had when he was fighting the puck earlier in the season, which is worrisome. By that I mean he is dropping into a butterfly when the puck heads anywhere near the net. He is not a tall man, and he would be better off challenging shooters and makign himself BIG in goal.

In the final minute of play, Laliberte Sirianni, and Maroon are buzzing in the Hershey end. We aren't getting the puck ON net, though, as we have had three shots on goal for a while. Whoops, make it four...? No, I suppose not. How did that puck not go on net. GRRR...

Anyway, at the end of the period, the score is Bears 3, Phantoms 1. The SOG are Hershey 12, Phantoms 3.