Phantoms comeback falls short, drop Game 1 in Hershey

The Phantoms kicked things off in their series against first place Hershey tonight, and while the door seemed open for them to catch the Bears napping a bit -- them being the team coming off a first-round bye and likely expecting to roll through this series pretty easily -- and while this game ended up being pretty competitive, the Phantoms fell behind early and just weren\'t able to gain back all of the ground they gave up in this one.

The Basics

First period: 3:29- Hendrix Lapierre (Priskie, Frank)

Second period: 17:17- Henrik Rybinski (Strome, Trineyev)

Third period: 15:28- Tanner Laczynski (Brink, Attard)

SOG: 31 (LV) - 28 (HER)

Some Takeaways

Lineup notes

With Samu Tuomaala still unavailable due to injury, and with Elliot Desnoyers out for this game as well (no confirmation yet whether this is due to injury or if it\'s a healthy scratch), Ian Laperriere opted to again go with an 11F/7D lineup for Game 1 of this series. And in some ways, this call makes sense -- it\'s a setup which served them well in their first game against the Penguins last week, and on top of that, leaning on more defense feels logical when they\'re facing one of the most productive offenses from this season. But, on the other hand -- and it\'s hard to say whether this was due to them running 11F/7D period, of because of the specific players that they\'re missing -- but it did seem to come at the expense of some of their offense this evening (but more on that later).

Petersen falters

Cal Petersen got the start in both of the Phantoms\' two wins last week, and it feels natural that he would be given the start in this first game of the new series. But while he was quite solid in those first two games, tonight we saw him looking a bit shakier. Now, this obviously wasn’t a high scoring affair for either side, it was only two goals that he allowed in, so we’re left to nitpick a bit here. Particularly on the second Hershey goal, the ultimate game-winner, despite the defensive breakdown that allowed for the shot to get through to him, he also just plainly let the shot get through him — it was a leaky goal, no other way to put it. And under normal circumstances, we might be able to hand wave off one poor goal allowed, but in a game that was as close as this one, in a series that is bound to be as difficult as this one, one more save makes a huge difference. And the Phantoms just needed a little bit more from Petersen tonight.

A lot of even strength reps

The Phantoms also saw a sharp turn away from the situation they ran into in their last game (when it seemed like you couldn’t look at an opposing player too hard without being called for a penalty, and the number of power plays we saw bordered on obscene), and instead had to go through this game overwhelmingly at even strength. Indeed, outside of a pair of offsetting roughing minors, which left us at 4-on-4 anyway, the officials put the whistles away and let the guys play. And this, for the Phantoms, was a bit of bad news, considering that they got a nice bit of production from their power play in that last game (three of their five goals scored), meaning that they were left to figure out their 5-on-5 offense or else, and this ended up being a real difficulty for them.

Close, but no cigar

By this we mean, despite the fact that the Phantoms (aided by the flurry of chances they put together during their 6-on-5 at the end of the games) ultimately came away with the better of the shots on goal battle, they struggled, more than Hershey, to generate a lot of really good chances on net. Working with the stats that we have (that is, using the shot map that the AHL tracks for) we can see only six shots taken from what we would call the high danger area of the ice. And we saw the dividends paid when they did get to those areas (Laczynski\'s goal came from right outside the crease), but they struggled to get to that area consistently, and as such limited their offense.

Now, we know that Hershey defends well and will work hard to limit the chances they give up, so this won\'t be easy, but the Phantoms finding success in these next few games hinges on their ability to avoid being largely limited to shooting from the outside.

Talking Points