Let the fireworks begin


By Tom Williams

The Phantoms and the U.S. National team will play their final NAHL series.

BOARDMAN — Having survived an extremely tight playoff series against the Traverse City North Stars, the Mahoning Valley Phantoms have shifted their attention to the team that surged down the stretch to steal precious home-ice advantage.

Tonight in Ann Arbor, Mich., the Phantoms will open a best-of-5 series against the North American Hockey League North Division champion, the U.S. National team. The opening faceoff at the Ice Cube is set for 7 p.m.

It will be the last NAHL playoff series for both squads. This fall, Team USA is joining the United States Hockey League.

Phantoms owner Bruce Zoldan hopes he will be icing a USHL club in the fall that would be based at the Chevrolet Centre.

For now, the Phantoms and Nationals are concentrating on eliminating each other one last time. The series winner will advance to the Robertson Cup Finals that will be contested in Mason City, Iowa, starting April 28.

Goaltender Jordan Tibbett, who backstopped the Phantoms to wins in Games 1 and 5 against Traverse City, called the division finals “huge. They have a great team. They have the most skilled players in the United States at their age.

“It’s going to be a great challenge, just like this past series,” said Tibbett after the Phantoms defeated the North stars, 2-1, on Sunday at the Ice Zone. “It’s really going to show our character as a team and that’s what it’s all about.”

The Phantoms don’t need to look hard for motivation. After leading the North Division for just about the entire regular season, the Nationals overtook the Phantoms in the final weekend as they erased a nine-point deficit in the final 12 days.

Their reward was an opening-round series against the fourth-place Alpena IceDiggers. After splitting the first two games in Ann Arbor, the Nationals won both games in Alpena by 4-1 scores.

Meanwhile, the Phantoms had their hands full with the North Stars. After winning Game 1, 5-4, the Phantoms rallied from a three-goal deficit to force overtime in Game 2. Eighteen seconds into the extra session, Traverse City’s Nate Urbaniak scored against Tibbett to even the series.

Phantoms coach Bob Mainhardt sent Garrett Bartus to guard the net in Game 3 and he shut out the North Stars, 3-0. Traverse City rallied for a 4-2 win against Bartus to force Game 5.

In Sunday’s game, second-period goals by Michael Pateras and Robert Harrison staked the Phantoms to a 2-0 lead.

Erik Higby, who assisted on both goals, said Tibbett, “has been solid all year for us. [Sunday] he came up huge, making big saves when we needed them.”

With two minutes to go, the North Stars’ Eric O’Hearn beat Tibbett to cut the lead to one. Although the North Stars pulled goalie C.J. Motte with 90 seconds remaining, Tibbett stopped all of their final shots.

“I can’t say enough about Jordan,” Mainhardt said. “Coming off a tough overtime loss, he was able to recover physically and emotionally over the last week and came out and was just fantastic.”

Tibbett said, “They had a lot of really good chances. Sometimes you just have to work as hard as you can and hope the puck hits you. There may have been a few times that I got real lucky but that comes with hard work.”

Tibbett shrugged off the six-day break.

“You just try to stay focused,” Tibbett said. “We played 58 games all year to get ready for these moments.”

williams@vindy.com

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