PHANTOMS
Lehigh Valley

1-2

DEVILS
Binghamton

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Conner – Vecchione – Aube-Kubel
Carey – Vorobyev – Goulbourne
Leier – Bunnaman – Twarynski
Krushelnyski – Swavely – McDonald[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Brennan – Friedman
Samuelsson – Myers
Palmquist – Willcox[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
Lyon
Komm

Scratches:

James de Haas, Cole Bardreau, German Rubtsov, Mike Huntebrinker, David Kase

Injury List:

Game Report

The Lehigh Valley Phantoms kicked off the weekend with a home game against the Binghamton Devils, but their Friday night didn’t exactly go as planned.

The first period was all Lehigh Valley, as they spent most of the frame in the offensive zone, peppering newly-signed Evan Cormier with nine shots as opposed to the two shots Alex Lyon faced at the other end of the ice.

Both goalies made some decent saves, but no one was putting any particularly dangerous-ooking shots on net. With only one penalty called in the period, against Binghamton, the Phantoms found themselves with the sole man-advantage opportunity but couldn’t capitalize on it.

Things moved slowly to begin the second period, but as the game progressed both teams started to get sloppy and make mistakes, leading to more time spent in the penalty boxes.

Finally, the Devils broke open the scoring at about the midway point when Ryan Schmelzer made his presence known close to the crease in the slot and managed to get the puck past Lyon back door to make it 1-0 for the visiting team.

Just minutes later, Binghamton extended that lead with an ugly goal by Nick Lappin who scooped up a rebound and shoveled it just between Lyon’s back and the post to give his team a 2-0 lead heading into intermission.

Lehigh Valley came out strong in the third period, putting a lot of pressure on the Devils and continuing to drive the net looking for a greasy goal or a fortunate bounce. They finally got one when Zach Palmquist managed to bang the puck over the goal line to bring the home team within one goal of tying the game, but the simply couldn’t complete the comeback.

The game was the first of the Phantoms’ three-in-three schedule this weekend, and they stay on home ice Saturday night to begin a home-and-home series with division rival, the Hershey Bears. Listen in the audio player below for post-game interviews with players and head coach Kerry Huffman.

▲     Connor Bunnaman, Zach Palmquist, Philippe Myers

▼     Mikhail Vorobyev, Alex Krushelnyski

1. Evan Cormier  BNG
2. Nick Lappin  BNG
3. Brandon Gignac  BNG

Post-game interview with Zach Palmquist:

Post-game interview with Connor Bunnaman:

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

Defenseman Mark Friedman has now drawn 27 penalties this season.

That’s more than double the next closest players on the #LVPhantoms roster – Taylor Leier is at 13 and Mike Vecchione is currently at 12. pic.twitter.com/lDew0ow7xB

— LehighValleyPhantoms (@LVPhantoms) January 12, 2019

T.J. Brennan's assist for the @LVPhantoms yesterday was the 300th of his AHL career.

He is the 13th defenseman in league history to reach 300 assists. pic.twitter.com/HITKPrEMJo

— AHL Communications (@AHLPR) January 7, 2019

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