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PHANTOMS FLY PAST PENGUINS, 3-1

  

Martin Houle made 35 saves, and the Penguins were held scoreless in seven power play opportunities, as the Philadelphia Phantoms posted a 3-1 win Saturday night at the Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza.

The loss saw the Pens’ record fall to 33-14-2-3 on the year, while Philly upped its mark to 20-27-2-5.

The game was in stark contrast to the one played just one night earlier in Wilkes-Barre, which saw the Penguins pound the Binghamton Senators by a 7-0 score.

“Philadelphia played hard tonight, and I thought we played hard as well. Our shots were hitting the goalie in the chest, but a lot of times when you’ve got pressure, you don’t have a lot of time to get your head up and look,” said head coach Todd Richards. “I thought our guys put forth an effort. We weren’t able to accomplish some of the things we wanted to do. I think a lot of that had to do with how Philadelphia was playing.”

The Phantoms found themselves shorthanded seven times on the evening, but managed to snuff out each attempt. Twenty-four hours earlier, the Penguins managed to go four-for-five while on the man advantage.

OFFICIAL SCORESHEET

GOALS BY PERIOD
TEAM
1st
2nd
3rd
OT
Total
PHI
1
0
2
-
3
WBS
0
0
1
-
1

SHOTS BY PERIOD
TEAM
1st
2nd
3rd
OT
Total
PHI
10
4
5
-
19
WBS
4
14
18
-
26
 

THREE STARS
1. Houle - Philadelphia
2. Potulny - Philadelphia
3. Ruzicka - Philadelphia
 

GOALTENDER STATS
TEAM GOALIE
GA
SV
W-L
PHI Houle
1
35
W
WBS Deslauriers
3
16
L

“As good as we were last night, we couldn’t make a play [Saturday],” said Richards. “We lost a lot of battles on the power play, thus our power play wasn’t good.”

Philadelphia took a 1-0 lead to the first intermission on Niko Dimitrakos’ 14th goal of the season, and his third in four games against the Penguins.

There were plenty of fisticuffs to go around as well, with Dennis Bonvie, Wade Brookbank and Ryan Lannon all getting in scrapes in the first period.

After a scoreless second frame, Stefan Ruzicka took advantage of a Ryan Stone charging call to net the Phantoms’ lone power play goal on the night – and it turned out to be the game winner to boot.

“That second goal was huge. That was a killer,” Richards said. “I really think in the second period, we started to take over the game, started to wear them down…you could see us starting to move in the right direction. That goal was not a good goal.”

Darren Reid picked up the third Philly goal – and his third against the Penguins this season – 8:30 into the third, before Tyler Spurgeon spoiled Houle’s shutout bid with 5:45 to play. The goal was Spurgeon’s first in the American Hockey League.

Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers took the loss for the Penguins, stopping just 16 of 19 shots on the night.

“Jeff’s been good all year. Tonight he probably wasn’t as sharp as he’d like to be, or we’d like him to be,” said Richards.