The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (3-6-2) won their third game of the season 4-1 Wednesday night against the Hershey Bears (5-3-2) from the Giant Center.
This is the second meeting between these two teams. In their last meeting back on October 17th, the Bears beat the Phantoms 2-1.
Felix Sandstrom started in goal, and the scratches for the game were Adam Clendening, Mason Millman, Linus Sandin, Wyatte Wylie, Sam Ersson, Hayden Hodgson, and Tyson Foerster.
After some back-and-forth action early in the first period, the Bears struck first off the faceoff at 3:19. Bears center Mike Sgarbossa took the faceoff, and the puck bounced around a bit. Phantoms defensemen Logan Day tried to control the puck but couldn’t, allowing Garrett Pilon (4) to get the puck.
Pilon drew Sandstrom away from his net before quickly sending the puck to Sgarbossa (5). Sgarbossa had an empty net in front of him and scored the goal.
Not long after the goal, Phantoms center Gerry Mayhew was kneed in the face by Kody Clark and got up gingerly and headed to the bench. However, he stayed in the game and would get his payback later on.
Phantoms goalie Felix Sandstrom settled down and made some great saves to keep the game 1-0. Late in the first period, Garrett Wilson went after Shane Gersich after Gersich elbowed Mayhew. After the first period ended, Max Willman and Garrett Pilon were about to go at it after Pilon poked Willman with the stick. The score remained 1-0, and the Bears led the shots 9-6.
About a minute into the second period, Cal O’Reilly (2) got the puck and did a turnaround shot that was redirected by Max Willman (5) for the goal that tied the game 1-1. The Phantoms were taking shots; some were hitting the boards.
The officials made a bad call on a tripping penalty against Phantoms defenseman Egor Zamula that put the Bears on the power play. However, the replay showed Zamula never touched the play, and he slipped on his own. Nevertheless, the Phantoms killed the power play.
Midway through the second period, Phantoms goalie Felix Sandstrom came out of his net to retrieve the puck. However, Sandstrom had a Bears player nearby and tried to get back to the net before a shot was taken. Luckily, the Phantoms’ defense was already blocking the net as the Bears tried to score. As a result, Sandstrom was able to get back in the net just in time to stop the shot.
At 10:43 in the second period, Bears’ defensemen Alex Alexeyev was called for high-sticking. Then, the Phantoms capitalized on the power play at 11:32 when Morgan Frost (8) passed the puck to Logan Day.
Logan Day (2) got the Bears’ goalie Pheonix Copley to bite before finding Gerry Mayhew (5) went up the middle with an empty net in front to give the Phantoms a 2-1 lead.
Over a minute later, Connor Bunnaman (1) found Jackson Cates (2) with no one around him on the breakaway, and he buried the shot for a 3-1 lead with 6:05 left in the second period.
Under a minute later, a two-on-one developed for the Phantoms. Max Willman and Cal O’Reilly had one Bears defender to beat. Willman (2) made a backhand pass to O’Reilly (1) for the goal to take a commanding 4-1 lead. The Bears were applying pressure late in the second period as time expired. The Phantoms led 4-1 with a 9-8 shot advantage.
In the third period, Phantoms center Gerry Mayhew had a breakaway. However, the Bears’ defense jabbed his stick to kill the momentum. The Bears were aggressive in the third period, and the Phantoms did a good job stopping any momentum they had.
With 3:10 left, the Bears pulled Pheonix Copley for a six-on-five advantage. The Phantoms did what they needed to do and came out with a 4-1 win. The shots were 15-7 in favor of the Bears. The total shots in the game were 32-22 Bears.
Lehigh Valley Phantoms goalie Felix Sandstrom had a solid night making 31 of 32 saves, and the Phantoms were one-for-four on the power play.
The Phantoms will wrap up their four-game road trip on Friday against the Providence Bruins at 7:05 pm.
