Phantoms sweep Penguins, advance to second round playoffs

That\'s all she wrote, folks! After a pretty commanding victory over the Penguins in the first game of this best of three series on Wednesday, the Phantoms took it back home this evening, looking to finish the job and punch their ticket to the second round on home ice, and boy did they ever. It wasn\'t the prettiest of showings, and at times it looked like this one might just get away from the Phantoms, but they were still able to bear down, make the most of the chances that they were given, and come away with the win when it mattered most.

The Basics

First period: 2:17- Valterri Puustinen (Rathbone)

Second period: 9:19 - Ronnie Attard (Mete, Gardiner) PPG, 14:06- Radim Zohorna (Hinestroza, Puustinen) PPG, 17:58- Jack Rathbone (Koivunen, Hinestroza)

Third period: 12:15- Emil Andrae (Marody, Lycksell) PPG, 12:37- Tanner Laczynski (Brink, Andrae), 16:12- Radim Zohorna (Puustinen, Hinestroza), 16:46- Tanner Laczynski (Belpedio, Lycksell)

OT: Jacob Gaucher (Furry, Belpedio)

SOG: 34 (LHV) - 28 (WBS)

Some Takeaways

Special teams mania

After a relatively quiet showing for each team\'s special teams units on Wednesday -- as just four penalties were called across the whole of the game -- we saw an absolute explosion of penalties called in this one. The Penguins were given seven opportunities on the power play, and the Phantoms six, meaning the door was wide open for someone to take off running with this game, if the other really faltered.

And that\'s just about what happened. The Penguins were only able to convert on one of those power play chances, as the Phantoms\' penalty kill was able to keep them pretty well contained, while the Phantoms were able to convert on three of theirs (one being a 5-on-3 advantage, but the point still stands). And this was huge for them in the small picture of simply getting the goals that they needed in order to pull off this win, but also in the larger picture, in terms of their progress as a team. We noted after Wednesday\'s game that they Phantoms, despite their strong play at even strength, really didn\'t have much going for them on the power play, and it really felt like they were leaving chances on the table as a result. This time around, though, they were much more efficient in generating their chances, and the finishing came with it this time around. Their power play has been a bit streaky this season, so it remains to be seen if they\'ll be able to keep the ball rolling going forward, but we appreciate the bit of work they did tonight.

One step back

That said, while we commend the step they took forward in terms of creating offense while on the man-advantage, in some ways it felt like it came at the expense of their offense at 5-on-5. Now, to be sure, when you have 13 penalties called in a single game, that really makes it difficult to establish much in the way of momentum once you do make it back to even strength, but even so, the Phantoms looked, on the whole, much less crisp than they did on Wednesday. Their passes weren\'t as clean, they weren\'t skating as a five-man unit, they didn\'t have to support to finish on many of the high danger chances that they were trying to set up. Perhaps it feels hard to be too fussy when the goals did end up coming for them from somewhere anyway, but this is something that is going to need shoring up before their next series, when they\'ll face a much better team from top to bottom, and they won\'t be able to afford to trading areas to leave chances on the table.

Never say die

Say what you will, though, about an imperfect showing, because this was still an impressive one. This is a Phantoms team that we\'ve seen struggle to pull themselves all the way out of holes at times this season, and for that reason, there was some legitimate reason for concern that when they fell into that two goal hole in the second period that this might just be it for them in this one. But we\'ll give credit where its due: the Phantoms didn\'t have their A-game tonight, but that didn\'t mean that they punted this one and decided they\'d try their luck again in Game 3. They weren\'t dominant in this game, but they were opportunistic -- on top of converting on half of their power play chances, they managed to bring a bit of quick-strike effectiveness to their scoring at even strength. They didn\'t get down on themselves and start pressing, they just let the chances come to them, and tonight that was enough.

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Phantoms sweep Penguins, advance to second round playoffs

Talking Points