The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (25-21-6) continued their four-game road trip on Saturday night. They visited the Giant Center to take on the Hershey Bears (32-10-10) for the tenth time this year. The Phantoms have not had much success against Hershey this year. However, they did win their last two meetings.
Lehigh Valley did not have their scoring leader Elliot Desnoyers, who was called up by the Philadelphia Flyers before the game and he made his debut against the New Jersey Devils. In addition, the Phantoms did not have Ryan Fitzgerald and Cal O’Reilly due to injuries. Nolan Maier (2-1-2, 3.12 GAA, .873 SV%) started in goal with Pat Nagle as the backup.
The Phantoms got off to a good start in the first period. They had seven shots on goal, while Hershey only had two. The Phantoms jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Garrett Wilson (15) tried a wraparound goal but missed. There was a brief scramble for the puck until Tyson Foerster (18) fired it over Zach Fucale’s right shoulder and into the net for a power-play goal.
Lehigh Valley did a great job on defense in the first period with lots of blocked shots. Wyatte Wylie and Kevin Connauton got down on their bellies to prevent Hershey from shooting. Hershey had trouble finding any openings to take a shot. In addition, the Phantoms stayed out of the penalty box. The Phantoms led 1-0 after one period.
In the second period, it was all Hershey. Hershey took advantage of two Phantoms’ mistakes. Just eight seconds after the Phantoms killed Hershey’s power play, the Bears tied the game 1-1 with 13 minutes left on a goal by Riley Sutter (4). Joe Snively (4) rushed from the right side and made a cross-ice pass to Sutter for the goal. The goal could’ve been prevented had Jackson Cates been aware of Sutter’s presence who was left alone as he scored the goal. Bobby Nardella (15) picked up the secondary assists.
A minute and fifteen seconds later, Bobby Brink had a breakaway chance but was slashed by Logan Day and thus was awarded a penalty shot. It was the first penalty shot for the Phantoms this year. Unfortunately, Brink could not score and the game remained tied at one apiece. With 6:22 left of the second period, Hershey took the lead.
Hendrix Lapierre (14) retrieved a bouncing puck with two Phantoms players chasing him as he passed to Garrett Pilon (7) and whisked it over Nolan Maier’s glove and into the net. It was now 2-1 Hershey and Mason Morelli (20) picked up the secondary assist. Once again, the Phantoms’ defense had a blown coverage and Hershey capitalized on it. Hershey led 2-1 after two periods but the Phantoms led the shots 17-16.
In the third period, the AHL officials dictated this game. Thirty-three seconds into the third period, Hershey extended their lead to 3-1. Ethen Frank’s (17) shot went off of Maier’s right shoulder and Mike Vecchione (24) made a high stick pass to Mike Sgarbossa (18) and he scored the goal. There were four officials in the vicinity and they did not wave the goal off. The goal should not have counted.
The Phantoms came back to make it a one-goal game with 15:26 left. Garrett Wilson (16) wrestled the puck away from a Hershey player and found Wyatte Wylie (3) from near the blue line and he riffled it through the five-hole. It was now 3-2 Hershey.
With 11:39 left, the Phantoms appeared to have tied the game on what should’ve been Wyatte Wylie’s second goal but the officials waved it off on a high sticking pass by Adam Brooks. The Phantoms players were frustrated and had every right to be. It’s a shame when officials get in the way of a game and are not held accountable by the league.
Nevertheless, this fired up the Phantoms. They came back to tie the game at 3-3 when Louie Belpedio (14) made a nice pass to Hayden Hodgson (3) and used his speed to dodge two Hershey players before shooting the puck past Fucale’s right skate and into the net. Egor Zamula (13) got the secondary assists.
Phantoms’ goalie Nolan Maier made three terrific saves late in the third period to keep the game tied 3-3 heading into overtime. The Phantoms had a golden opportunity in overtime when Ronnie Attard was held by Vincent Iorio but they could not score. The Phantoms went one-for-four on the power play.
After no one scored in overtime, the game went to a shootout. In the second round, Joe Snively scored for Hershey. Tyson Foerster was the last hope to keep the game alive and he scored to go to the fourth round. Hershey ended the game when Henrik Borgstrom scored and the Phantoms lost the game by the final score of 4-3.
The Phantoms finished the night with 26 shots and Nolan Maier made 24 saves. On the other side, Hershey had 27 shots, 0/3 on the power play, and Zach Fucale made 25 saves.
The Phantoms visit the Total Mortgage Arena on Sunday against the Bridgeport Islanders at 5 pm on AHL.TV. Tickets for the game can be purchased on StubHub.
