Phantoms vs. Hartford Wolfpack, 10-23-09, First Period

I barely had time to get set up for posting, before Laliberte drew first blood 1A:20 into the first period! SWEET! One by one, our top scorers from last season are getting their first goals in the past couple of games.

Brian Boucher has returned to the Flyers, and was their backup last night.

Stefan Legein, the newest Phantom, is on a line with Kalinski and Kaspar. Nodl is centering Klotz and Clackson.

Speaking of Klotz, he just had a heavyweight bout with a Hartford player whose name I'll have to look up. From the sound of it (I only have the audio going at the moment), he did well.

Clackson is going off for holding soon afterward. Hartford proceeds to score a PP goal. 1-1 on an east-west play that Backlund had no chance of stopping.

Now I have the video, and I'm just in time to see Hartford go on a PK of their own several minutes after their goal. The Phantoms are in the midst of a very active PP, but the puck seems to refuse to go in the net. On the other hand, moments after we returned to full strength, Hartford took a tripping penalty and we are going back on the PP. Hartford's goalie is putting on a clinic right now; he just STONED Jared Ross.

Hmmm. I detect a Revlon Special (makeup) penalty against the Phantoms, leaving us with 27 seconds of 4 on 4 hockey and then a Phantoms PK.

But here goes Kalinski with a SH rush. The Hartford defender dives to strip him of the puck, but Legein is the trailer and he picks up the now-loose puck and fires on net.

Soon after that, Kalinski takes the puck from out zone on a full-on SH breakaway. His shot goes wide. But he and Legein keep battling and get some more shorthanded shots. Ross is the next one to break out on the PK. We seem to be getting more scoring opportunities while shorthanded than Hartford is getting on their man advantage.

Boy, AHL Live must be overloaded with people taking advantage of the free games tonight, because the flipping video keeps stopping and starting. Time for me to resort to the audio again until the video unfreezes.

Aaaand I am able to reconnect a grand total of ONE second before the end of the period. The score is 1-1, and the Phantoms will be shorthanded, I didn't get to see why, when the second period begins.