Posted on Thu, May. 8, 2008
If the Phantoms are waiting for the perfect opportunity to steal some of the Penguins’ momentum, they will have to continue to wait until Friday.
In large part due to 11 penalties taken -- including a five-minute major and two game misconducts -- the Phantoms dropped their third straight to the Penguins Wednesday night at the Wachovia Center and are now facing elimination from the Calder Cup playoffs.
“Obviously, discipline was a major issue,” Phantoms alternate captain Jared Ross said. “[The Penguins] have given us trouble in the past and we didn’t help ourselves. This late in the season it’s absolutely unnecessary to take as many penalties as we did, we don’t really give ourselves a chance.”
“We were in the [penalty] box all night whether we deserved the penalties or not,” Phantoms head coach Craig Berube said. “This series we’ve been in the penalty box a lot and we have to fix that if we want to advance.”
Goals came early and often for the Penguins, who took full advantage of their league-best power play by converting three of 11 opportunities.
Center Tim Brent notched both of his tallies on the Penguins’ man advantage, capitalizing on Phantoms defenseman Denis Gauthier’s five minute elbowing major and two-minute holding penalty.
“It certainly put you on your heels right away,” Gauthier said. “You try to not let it affect you but… what’s called is called and we can’t put ourselves in those compromising positions.”
After Darroll Powe scored his first of the playoffs with less than three minutes left in the first period to make the score 2-1, the Phantoms came out in the second ready to get back into the game. That effort paid off, as Ross tied the score at 2-2 on the first of the Phantoms’ three power play opportunities.
Still on a power play thanks to the high sticking penalty that Penguins defenseman Alex Goligoski took late in the first, Ross scored just 19 seconds into the second period. He took a pass from Stefan Ruzicka in front and repeatedly whacked at the rebound until the puck finally went in past Penguins goalie John Curry.
Yet while in the midst of celebrating, the Phantoms were caught off guard when Penguins forward Ryan Stone fired a one-timer into the net from the blue line right off the center ice faceoff.
“We got that goal and it was 2-2, and I thought we were going to be running from there,” Ross said. “They got a fluky goal and after that, we just kind of loss control with the penalties.”
Penguins center Dustin Jeffrey swooped the puck past a down-and-out Scott Munroe to make it 4-2 in Wilkes-Barre’s favor. But Phantoms captain Boyd Kane deflected defenseman Nate Guenin’s shot in front and pulled the Phantoms back within 3-2 at 7:41 of the period.
From there, the Penguins opened up a scoring frenzy-- netting four unanswered goals and chasing Munroe out of his own crease after allowing five goals on 22 shots.
“Obviously [Munroe] would like to be better and he’s played well all playoffs and sometimes it happens,” Berube said.
“I just have to forget about that one,” Munroe said. “We have a game Friday and that’s what I’m focusing on now.”
While rookie goaltender Michael Teslak replaced Munroe, the Phantoms continued to get scoring chancesof their own. Center Pete Zingoni scored his third goal of the playoffs at 14:41 of the third period.
“I just tried to make the most of it from the time I had,” Zingoni said. “It didn’t mean much in the game but it gave a little bit of confidence in ourselves to take into the next game.”
The series now shifts back to Wilkes-Barre for game five Friday night and the Penguins will have the chance to wrap up the best-of-seven series and wait for their next playoff opponent.
But the Phantoms will do everything they can to make sure they force game six back in Philadelphia on Saturday.
“We’re not giving up, we win one up there and we’re right back in the series,” Ross said. “In our minds, it’s not over at all and we’re going to just go out and play as hard as we can.”
“I’ve been involved in 3-1 games both on the winning side of it and the losing side of it,” Berube said. “We beat that team all year in their rink and if we go win [game five] it’s back in our court.”
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