Phantoms at Albany River Rats, 4-8-09; Second Period

How they think Szwez slashed the guy is beyond me... the long and short of it is that we are on the PK for the fourth time in the game.LOOK OUT oh what a save by Munroe! Nice clear, Kane! Now Matsumoto and McBain are grappling for the puck at the point. Matsumoto manages to drive both his adversary and the disk to the outside of the blue line. The penalty is killed, thank goodness.

There's a lot of end-to-end action going on right now. In the latest rush, Raduns carried it all the way in and took a shot. Clackson positioned himself at the crease's edge for any possible rebounds. Instead, an Albany defender dumped Clackson over the goalie into the net. The net came off its moorings, and Peters's goalie mask was dislodged, so play was stopped. Everybody's in one relatively intact piece, fortunately.

Hooray, time for a Phantoms PP. Let's see if we can do something with our second man advantage of the game.

OH, Ross made a beautiful move to bring the puck across the goalmouth and fire it, but Peters was ready for it and made a terrific save. Peters needs to be a star of the game if he keeps this up. Especially since Peters also managed to stop a shot that was deflected by a stick at point-blank range. Yeowza. Nice stop (dagnab it, lol).

We have reached the halfway mark of regulation time. The Phantoms still lead 1-0 and we are at even strength. Doggoned Binghamton, meanwhile, has tied their game at 1-1. C'mon, Crunch! Take the lead back!

Nice shot by Clackson, which created a rebound that the Rats managed to corral first. Unfortunately, that led to an odd-man rush into the Phantoms end, where Albany got a shot of their own and cashed in a rebound. Argh. 1-1.

We spent the next couple of shifts making a lot of noise in front of the Albany net, but so far we have not retaken the lead. However, we have dictated the majority of the play since the River Rats tied the score, so I am hopeful that we can be the next team to bury a puck. All we need to do is keep doing what we've done in the past few minutes of play. We currently lead on the shot clock 23-16 SCOOOOORE Bartulis! See what I mean? Outstanding! :) 2-1 Phantoms! Kukkonen made a huge cross-ice pass to Bartulis who suddenly pinched WAY in and fired the puck home, Our announcer said it appeared to be a set play, and from watching the replay of it, I believe him. Especially since Bartulis just got his second goal of the year in the 77th game of the season. So he's not normally what I'd consider an offensive D-man, to put it mildly.

Kalinski took a nice pass and went to crash the net with the puck. He did that a bit more effectively than he probably intended, as after getting the shot off he wound up colliding with Peters and the net. The goalie was bowled over, the net was knocked askew, Kalinski wound up in a pileup at the boards as the Rats didn't much appreciate seeing their goalie bumped into. The Phantoms joined in the conference, but the only penalty that came out of the scrum was Kalinski's two minutes for goaltender interference.

Blast. Rodney fires from the top of the slot and scores a flying-water-bottle goal to tie the game. 2-2.That was our 5th PK of the game. We need to do a better job of staying out of the box. I know this particular Zebra has come up with creative interpretations of the rules in the past (and present -- see the Szwez "slash" in the first period). But we can also avoid blatant infractions that any ref would be guaranteed to call.

In the final minute of the period, suddenly the River Rats have come to life and are buzzing around our net. Fortunately, the horn sounds and the period ends. The score is 2-2 and the Phantoms lead in SOG, 26-21. BInghamton and Syracuse remain at 1-1.

GO PHANTOMS! Win the third period handily!