The Phantom’s Game 1 of their second-round series against the Bears was one which was, by all counts, a close game, but one which did not feel particularly close. The Phantoms were able to keep within two goals of the Bears before the empty netter was scored, and finished the game down in the shot count by just one, with 26 to the Bears’ 27. So if the score wasn’t a blowout in Hershey’s favor, and they weren’t pulling away with a massive edge in the volume of chances generated, why was it that the Bear’s offense looked so much more dangerous in this one?
The answer to this — at least, was the impression from watching live up in the rafters — we suspected might be coming from the pre-shot motion on these fairly equal chances. That is, while the Bears seemed to be able to sustain more pressure, having their offense coming at the Phantoms in waves, the Lehigh Valley chances were coming in a much more one-and-done variety, as they struggled to manage to quickness of the Hershey forechecking pressure. It was a gut feeling, but worth investigating.
So, I went back and mapped out each of the Phantoms’ offensive zone passing sequences (or chains) at 5-on-5 from Game 1, broken down by period, into graphics we’ll see below. As a bit of an explainer: the solid lines represent a pass, while a dotted line represents a skating path taken after receiving a pass, and then a chain which ends with a circle means the play ended with a shot attempt taken, while a chain that ends with an X means that the play was killed when the puck was turned over.
The first period was, without a doubt, the ugliest for the Phantoms. They had a lot of activity unfolding in the offensive zone, to be sure, but it was relatively little that they were able to turn into anything meaningful. Here, we see them emphasizing two things — using the area behind the net as an option for dumping pucks and regrouping, and focusing on the low-to-high play, particularly sending pucks in on net from that right point. And the results really weren’t there on either of those game plans. The Bears were dominating in the battles along the boards and particularly below the goal line, and while the Phantoms seemed to want to use them as a way to help them create a bit of space and evade that pressure, more often than not, chipping pucks into those areas just meant throwing them away.
And then the low-to-high play (which is, in fairness, one with which they’ve found some success this season, on the shooting strength of some of their defenders) is not one which paid dividends for them in the early goings. While there might be something to the idea of just throwing everything at a hot goaltender like Hunter Shepard and hoping that a bounce goes your way eventually, the Phantoms didn’t really have the right traffic in place in front of him in order to create those dangerous rebounds. In truth, more often than not, they were shooting wide of the net and just landing pucks back in that area behind the goal line where they were, as we established, losing more battles than they were winning. Trouble compounds trouble, in this way.
The second period, though, saw them take a bit of a step forward. They didn’t see quite as much offensive zone time — there was also a bit less 5-on-5 time, in fairness — but they were able to do a little bit more with the chances they did get. While, on the one hand, they did again see about half of their passing sequences end in a loss of possession, they were able to do a bit better to get inside on the Bears defenders and string together some passes to get more dangerous shots on net from in and around the slot. The notable difference here is that the Phantoms were able to create more — there wasn’t the same feeling that they needed to make the quick bang-bang (single pass to an immediate shot from wherever, that is) as their primary play, but they were able to get to work, and actually create a bit of a cycle, if only in flashes.
By the third period, the Phantoms seemed to have settled in even more. They struck a better balance here — though the third period had the least 5-on-5 time of any period in this game, the Phantoms were able to maintain the most offensive zone possession at even strength of any of the previous frames, and with it, their most dangerous flashes of offense. They were still clearly favoring that low-to-high play (but this time, trying their luck with it on the left side of the ice), but it wasn’t the only look they were prioritizing. Building on that second period effort, the Phantoms were able to string together some passes to get pucks to the center of the ice, for a few more looks in that home plate area. But even more notably, they were able to mix up the ways in which they were building up towards those shots. That is, earlier in the game, it felt like they were either shooting off of rush plays or remaining stagnant in the zone and trying to whip passes around, but there was very little mixing of those methods. Come the third period, though, the Phantoms seemed a little more comfortable in their puck protection, and instead of playing like they needed to get the puck off their stick as soon as it arrived there, they showed some more patience, at more times receiving a pass, then taking a bit more time to use their feet to find (or create) space to either get to a better shooting location, or a better spot to thread another pass through to keep a play alive longer. It wasn’t until this point that their offensive game really began to look legitimately dangerous. It was a good effort put in, even if it was, by that time, too little too late.
So, what do we take from all of this? Game 1 was surely, if nothing else, a wakeup call for the Phantoms, and a reminder of the level of defense, the tightness of checking, that they should be expecting in a playoff setting. They were able to cruise through their play-in round matchup against the Penguins with relative ease, but they cannot expect to be able to do the same against these two-time defending Calder Cup champs. The good news is that as this series premiere wore on, the Phantoms were able to settle in — and settle down — and get back to something more closely resembling the game they had worked to build throughout the regular season. This is a matchup that won’t give them an inch of space unearned, but if they’re able to build on the foundation laid in that third period of Game 1 — continuing to stand firm in their one-on-one battles, and not allowing themselves be pressured into making a panic play, and rather letting their large group of truly skilled playmakers work — it’s also one which can see favor swing back around to them.
This series still has a lot of runway ahead, and the keys to getting back to success for the Phantoms are well laid out, so long as they can do the work, can reach out and grab them.
