Graham has two goals, assist against Ice Diggers

Mahoning Valley goalie
Jordan Tibbett rejected all but two Alpena shots.

By GREG GULAS

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

BOARDMAN — Derek Graham scored two goals and added an assist as the Mahoning Valley Phantoms defeated the Ice Diggers, 6-2 in North American Hockey League action Saturday at the Ice Zone.

Goalie Jordan Tibbett rejected all but two Alpena shots.

The win gave Mahoning Valley (29-16-4, 62 points) a sweep of their weekend series with the Ice Diggers (26-19-5, 57 points) as they won for the seventh time in 10 outings against their division counterparts.

The four-point weekend gives Mahoning Valley a five-point lead on Alpena for second-place in the North Division with nine regular season games remaining.

“We go to Marquette this weekend and they lost tonight to Traverse City,” Phantoms head coach Bob Mainhardt said. “That places them in a tie with each other for the fourth and final play-off spot in the division.

“Every game means something right now for every team so you might as well just say that we’ve started our play-offs a little bit early,” Mainhardt said.

“We did a better job of protecting the lead tonight and with Alden Hirschfeld’s return, the reuniting of [Derek] Graham, [Grant] Blakey and Hirschfeld looked like that line hasn’t missed a beat.

“Give Alpena credit because they played 60 minutes of hockey both nights,” Mainhardt said. “They just kept coming at us no matter what the score.”

One weekend after Mahoning Valley struggled to score two total goals while yielding five each outing to North Division leader and the North American Hockey League’s top team, the St. Louis Bandits, the Phantoms seemingly righted their offensive ship and in the process corrected any defensive shortcomings they might have experienced.

Mahoning Valley scored early and often as they reeled off five unanswered goals to begin the game for the second consecutive night.

Blakey’s 17th goal of the season at 1:16 of the opening period staked the Phantoms to the early goal advantage, and when Brian McGinty notched his second goal in as many nights at 4:22, Mahoning Valley had built an early 2-0 cushion.

Graham followed with the first of his two scores at 14:31 to give Mahoning Valley a three-goal margin heading to the first intermission.

Graham, the team’s leading scorer (62 points) and goal producer with 28, notched his first goal since January 18; a span of 16 games that yielded just six total points with all but one a goal helper.

Nick Kenney’s seventh goal at 11:44 of the second period made it 4-0 in favor of the Phantoms and when Scott Moser registered his wrister a minute and 27 seconds later, Mahoning Valley had its second straight five unanswered goal night.

Alpena’s Russ Anderson ruined goalie Jordan Tibbett’s shutout, slipping his shot past Tibbett’s outstretched hand at 14:39 as they cut the Phantom lead to 5-1 with 20 minutes remaining.

Graham’s second tally at 1:31 of the final period helped the Phantoms reclaim their five goal lead, but Alpena’s Erik Peterson scored at 18:58 to round out the scoring on the night.