Game Story by Colleen Wolfe

Phantoms lead 5-1 over Hartford Wolf Pack

(Philadelphia, PA. Jan. 28, 2005) – The Philadelphia Phantoms must have been still hot from their 3-2 win over the Albany River Rats last Monday, when they ended tonight’s game against Hartford 5-1. This two-game series wrap-up with Hartford made this their first victory against the Wolf Pack out of their last four games together.

Ben Stafford scored two goals, Randy Jones, B.J. Abel and Ryan Ready also scored, while Boyd Kane and Todd Fedoruk each had two assists in front of the 10,921 fans at the Wachovia Spectrum. Philadelphia’s Antero Niittymaki blocked 28-of-29 shots from the Wolf Pack, causing their fifth out of seven game lose played on the road.

Unveiling their new purple third jerseys, Philadelphia scored the first goal in under a minute and a half thanks to Stafford and the assistance of Kane and Fedoruk. The Phantoms then proceeded to shoot another goal over the side of Hartford goalie Steve Valiquette’s left shoulder on a four-on-four position from defensman Randy Jones. Alone in the middle of the ice, Jones attempted a shot for the goal while R.J. Umberger and Patrick Sharp looked on from a corner of the rink.

With only 4.2 seconds to spare in the first period, the Wolf Pack decided to end their scoreless game. In another four-on-four situation, Jamie Lundmark handed the puck off to Jeff Hamilton whom tapped the puck right past Niittymaki to end the period at 2-1.

In a battle around the net during the second period, Riley Cote and Ben Eager controlled the puck and passed it to B.J. Abel. Missing the scoring opportunity, Abel quickly followed the puck back in for the two-point advantage over Hartford.

After a number of penalties for both teams, Hartford’s sole scorer of the game, Hamilton, missed a close shot potentially creating a comeback for the Wolf Pack in the third period. However this chance was lost yet again when Jones scored his second goal of the night on an empty net. The puck jumped from player to player producing the ping-pong effect that would make Valiquette temporarily lose sight of it. Kane, whom used to play for Hartford from 1998-2002, and Fedoruk, assisted for a second time in the game with the pass to Stafford, enabling him to score his second shot against the Wolf Pack.

“All of our lines are going and we played really responsible hockey,” said Stafford. “We’re making plays when we have to and Niittymaki had a big game with some big saves.”

With a little over two minutes left in the game, an extra man from Hartford was put on the ice when Valiquette was pulled from his goal. Ryan Ready took full advantage of his resources when John Slaney passed him the puck from the far corner, scoring on the empty net. Ready’s sixth goal of the season, made the final score 5-1.

Phantoms head coach John Stevens commented, “I thought we had two great practices this week. There have been weeks where our execution in practice has been good but the energy hasn’t been there. This week for two days, we probably had the best energy we had all year. I was encouraged by that and we carried that into the game tonight. We had quality play from all different areas of our team and the penalty killing in the third period was tremendous.”

The Phantoms next game will be at the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on Saturday, February 19 at 7:05 p.m.