PHANTOMS
Lehigh Valley

3-5

BRUINS
Providence

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings: 

[one_half]Carey – Varone – Krushelnyski
Martel – Vecchione – Aube-Kubel
Swavely – Bardreau – McDonald
Twarynski – Knight – Connor[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Brennan – Friedman
Willcox – Lamarche
Drake – Myers[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders:
Lyon
Tokarski

Scratches:

Sam Morin, Will O’Neill, Mikhail Vorobyev, Radel Fazleev, Pascal Laberge, Tyrell Goulbourne, James de Haas, Isaac Ratcliffe, Anthony Stolarz, John Muse

Injury List:

Game Report

On Friday night, the Providence Bruins peppered goaltender Alex Lyon with 41 shots throughout 60 minutes of play. Lyon turned aside 39 of them to help backstop the Lehigh Valley Phantoms to a 3-2 win, taking a 1-0 series lead.

The Bruins picked up right where they left off on Saturday night as they came out fast and forechecking hard yet again. The Phantoms struggled to gain puck possession, break out of the defensive zone, or keep up with the home team’s speed.

Providence made them pay for those struggles early on by putting two pucks into the Phantoms’ net. Tensions from the previous game carried over, and soon enough there were scrums and battles seemingly after every whistle.

Lehigh Valley finally found their legs and made a surge toward the end of the opening period to climb back into a more even shots-on-goal differential, but couldn’t find their way past netminder Jordan Binnington.

For the first half of the second period, things didn’t look to improve for the visiting team. In fact, they started the frame on the penalty kill thanks to a roughing minor doled out to Cole Bardreau.

But about midway through the period, Mark Friedman used the waning seconds of a Lehigh Valley power play to bang the puck past Binnington and get the Phantoms on the board. Just over a minute later, Mike Vecchione followed suit by putting the puck in the back of the net off a rebound. The teams headed to the second intermission knotted at 2-2, with the Bruins taking a penalty just 0.2 seconds before the period ended.

The third period started with the ensuing power play, but just 19 seconds into it the Bruins scored shorthanded to regain the lead, 3-2. A power play goal against the Phantoms put them farther into the hole, while Providence continued to press hard on the forecheck.

Greg Carey managed to pot his second goal of the series to bring Lehigh Valley back within one goal, but a late empty-netter for the Bruins made a comeback impossible.

With the series now tied at 1-1, games three and four will take place in Allentown, along with game five, if necessary. The teams now have to have the mindset of a best-of-three matchup, and both benches promise to bring a lot of intensity down the stretch.

▲     Danick Martel, Mike Vecchione

▼     Steve Swavely, Carson Twarynski

1. Peter Cehlarik  PRO
2. Mike Vecchione  LV
3. Jordan Szwarz  PRO

Interviews conducted by Amy Johnson for AHL Report

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