Phantoms vs. Springfield Falcons, 10-09-2009, First Period

According to the Twitter feed of Tim McManus, the Phantoms' beat writer, the scratches for tonight's game are Jason Ward, Joonas Lehtivuori, Ryan Dingle, Rob Bellamy, Logan Stephenson.

The Phantoms have an early PP in the game. Makes me want to holler, "The Phantoms are now going on the PECOOOOO POWERPLAY!!!"

Mastumoto, Laliberte, Maroon, Jones, and Ratchuk are the first PP unit. Laliberte seems to be taking his place in the middle of the Falcons' four-man box. This five-man group spent the entire PP in front of the Springfield net.

Marshall buries a Falcon at the Adk half-boards, to the cheers of the fans. He is out with Jones on D. Ross, Nodl, and Kaspar are the forwards who are out.

Bourdon/Mormina is another D pair. Kalinski is out with Clackson and Klotz. Oh, and here comes a PK, as Clackson gets two minutes for holding.

Matsumoto, Laliberte, Curry, and I can't see the other defenseman are out on the first PK unit. Backlund, in his first atart of the season for the Phantoms, makes a couple of really nice stops.

Now it's Mormina, Kalinski, Beaulieu, and again, I can't see the other D. Nice PK, guys. We're back to even strength and the score remains 0-0.

Jones/Marshall are out again. It appears that Jones is paired with both Marshall and Ratchuk, which was also the case last Saturday. It appears that we have 7 D dressed again tonight (Mormina, Marshall, Bourdon, Jones, Bartulis, Ratchuk, Curry).

In the absence of Ward, Jared Ross's linemates are Lucas Kaspar an Andreas Nodl. Maroon, Laliberte, and Matsumoto are a line combination that was together last Saturday. Dingle is out, Beaulieu and Kolanos are in, so it's now Kalinski, Kolanos, and Beauleau. And as we have 7 D dressed, our remaining two forwards are Clackson and Klotz, who like last Saturday will be combined with a center from one of the other lines.

Backlund makes a nice save late, and Jones is right there to take the rebound out of harm's way. Heh, Ross (vertically-challenged) just buried Peckham (vertically gifted).

Oh, wait, Kip Brennan (ex-Bear) is on Springfield? Sheesh. He's a scooch. He got into the face of one of our guys, and Randy Jones responded by getting in HIS face. The end result is a late PK with 1:47 left in the period. Marshall goes off for slashing.

We end the period with the score at 0-0, and we will have 13 seconds remaining of PK at the start of the second period.

SOG: Phantoms 7, Falcons 14.