By Michael Heilman
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms returned to the PPL Center Friday night against the Springfield Thunderbirds in their final meeting of the season. This was the Phantoms first home game in twenty days. Hours before puck drop, the Flyers called up center Morgan Frost and sent Forward Andy Andreoff down. Andreoff along with Carsen Twarynski, Chris Bigras, TJ Brennan, and Pascal Laberge were all scratched for the game.
In the first period the Phantoms committed two penalties An interference call against forward Isaac Ratcliffe at two minutes and nineteen seconds, and a slashing call against forward David Kase at seventeen minutes and ten seconds. The Phantoms penalty-killing unit did their job to keep the Thunderbirds away from the goal net and to remain scoreless. Both goalies were stopping every shot that came their way. It was still a scoreless game 0-0 at the end of the first period. The shots were ten to five in favor of the Phantoms.
The Phantoms would finally break the scoreless tie with eight minutes and forty-four seconds left in the second period as Reece Willcox (1) made a backhand toss intended for Kyle Criscuolo, but the puck went into the lower-left goal net to put the Phantoms up 1-0. Both Kyle Criscuolo (9) and Tyler Wotherspoon (13) assisted Willcox’s goal. Once again, the Phantoms power-play unit had to kill off a couple of power plays and Jean Francois-Berube continued to shut the door on any shots that came his way as the Phantoms led 1-0 at the end of the second period. The shots were in favor of the Phantoms fourteen to seven.
The Phantoms began to distance themselves from the Thunderbirds in the third period. With twelve minutes and fifty-three seconds left in the third period as Cal O’Reilly was looking to pass the puck to Chris Stewart, but instead, the puck hit the stick of Thunderbirds defenseman Thomas Schemitsch, and James De Haas (1) finished the play for his first goal of the season to extend the Phantoms lead 2-0. Chris Stewart (1) and Cal O’Reilly (18) assisted De Haas’s goal. Two minutes and seven seconds later, the Phantoms added another goal to take a 3-0 lead as Kyle Criscuolo (7) shot the puck that hit the skate of Brady Keeper and into the net for the goal. Mark Friedman (9) and Tyler Witherspoon (19) assisted Criscuolo’s goal.
The Thunderbirds pulled goaltender Philippe Desrosiers with two minutes and thirty-seconds left in the third period to try and get back into the game. They managed to end Berube’s attempts at another shutout with a goal by Rodrigo Abols (4) and assists from Dryden Hunt (13) and Ethan Prow (17) to cut the Phantoms lead 3-1. The Thunderbirds quickly pulled Desrosiers again, but the Phantoms were able to put the final nail in the coffin as Mark Friedman (3) tossed the puck from the Phantoms zone and Kyle Criscuolo made sure the puck went in without touching it to give the Phantoms a 4-1 win over the Springfield Thunderbirds.
The story of the game was the power-play unit killing off six power plays and not allowing the Thunderbirds to score. Jean Francois-Berube almost had his fourth shutout of the year and was tremendous all night. On the flip side, the Phantoms need to work on not giving any opponents chances with free power plays.
The Phantoms finished the night with thirty-three shots on goal, and the Thunderbirds had twenty-five. The Phantoms were one for four on the power play while the Thunderbirds went zero for six. Phantoms goalie Jean Francois-Berube made twenty-four of twenty-five saves allowing one goal and Thunderbirds goalie Philippe Desrosiers was twenty-nine of thirty-two saves allowing three goals.
The Phantoms will hit the road again to the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza Saturday night against the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins at 7:05 pm.
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