Posted on Tue, May. 6, 2008
Despite their best efforts to climb out of a big hole, the Phantoms were stunned by the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in Game 3 of the East Division finals Monday night at the Wachovia Center, 3-2.
The Penguins, who now have a 2-1 edge over the Phantoms in the series, jumped out to a 3-0 lead with an early offensive explosion.
Wilkes-Barre struck twice halfway through the opening period, with defenseman Alain Nasreddine and forward Connor James scoring just 12 seconds apart.
Nasreddine made it 1-0 for the Penguins after center David Gove scooped the puck up from behind the net and threw it in front. Nasreddine got there first and fired a one-timer past Phantoms goalie Scott Munroe at 10:16.
“I’ll give them credit, they came out hard and put us on our heels right away,” Phantoms forward Ryan Potulny said. “We have to come out and put them on their heels -- that’s our game.”
“We didn’t come out ready to compete,” Phantoms head coach Craig Berube said. “In your own mind, you have to be ready to compete and get involved.”
The Penguins’ struck again while Nasreddine’s tally was still being announced. After the puck bounced off the boards, James took possession of it and snuck it past Munroe’s right side before the goalie had time to get to it.
Realizing they had to regroup, the Phantoms immediately called a 30-second timeout.
“We were standing around watching, not involved in the game,” Berube said. “I told the guys to get involved and get going.”
“He just said you have to settle down and play hockey,” Potulny said. “We weren’t making plays, we were kind of just throwing the puck away.”
“We had to settle down and want the puck and play as a unit,” Potulny added.
Alex Goligoski widened the Penguins' lead to three goals at 17:06. Munroe had trouble keeping the shot in his glove, and the puck barely slid over the line. After a delayed reaction from the goal judge, Goligoski was awarded his third goal of the playoffs.
“We can’t go down like that 3-0 and play the first two periods flat like that in our own rink,” Potulny said. “It was an easy game for them and in the playoffs you can‘t do that.”
“We waited to see what they were going to do, and that’s not us -- we initiate,” Berube said. “We can’t let that happen again.”
After keeping the second period scoreless, the Phantoms came out stronger in the third.
Taking advantage of Penguins winger Luca Caputi’s hooking penalty, Stefan Ruzicka finally got the Phantoms on the board at 7:58 by firing a backhand shot past goalie John Curry just 20 seconds into the power play.
Phantoms winger Jonathan Kalinski tipped a wraparound shot past Curry just 32 seconds after that, making the score 3-2 and giving the Phantoms a feasible chance to get back into the game.
“Obviously, we had a rough two periods, and we tried to come out in the third and get a couple quick ones,” Kalinski said. “We had a chance to come back but [Curry] played pretty good and we just couldn’t bury.”
While the Penguins were awarded seven power play opportunities throughout the game, the Phantoms only won two and were held to a season-low seven shots through the first two periods.
“We didn’t work hard enough to get any power plays,” Berube said. “If we would have worked hard enough from the beginning of the game, we would’ve had five or six and might have scored two or three goals--that’s a big difference.”
The Phantoms will have the opportunity to even up the series Wednesday when they meet with the Penguins again at the Wachovia Center for Game 4.
“The next game, we have to come out and get ourselves mentally ready from the drop of the puck,” Potulny said. “We cant just sit back for the first two periods and then decide we’re going to play.”
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