Phantoms in St. Louis for 2 games

By Tom Williams

The Phantoms are striving for home-ice advantage in the postseason.

The race for supremacy of the North American Hockey League’s North Division is heating up with six key games this weekend.

The Mahoning Valley Phantoms (35-14-5, 75 points) lead second-place Traverse City (30-16-7, 66) and U.S. National Team (32-15-4, 66) by nine points.

But the Phantoms have just four regular-season games remaining while the North Stars have five and the Nationals have eight.

Two of the Phantoms’ games are against the defending league champions. The Phantoms are in Missouri this weekend to play the St. Louis Bandits (39-9-6, 84), who are involved in their own division chase.

The Bandits are one point behind the first-place Topeka RoadRunners in the South Division. The RoadRunners and Bandits close the regular season with two games.

“This is something that we expected all season long considering how close our two hockey clubs have been all season,” Bandits coach Jeff Brown said of the tight race.

In Michigan, the North Stars will play host to one of Team USA’s two squads for two games. Team USA’s other squad will play twice against the Alpena Ice Diggers (26-21-5, 57).

First-place brings home-ice advantage for the first two rounds of the playoffs. For the Phantoms, it also means opening against a weaker opponent.

The other North Division race is for fourth place. The Ice Diggers have a three-point edge over the Marquette Rangers (23-23-8, 54).

The Phantoms have been up and down of late, going 2-2 in their most recent games at the Chevrolet Centre. Last weekend, they won one of their three games against the North Stars.

Tuesday, they rebounded to defeat Team USA, 4-1.

Mahoning Valley’s Josh Bussell, whose goal 89 seconds into the Team USA game started the scoring, credited goaltender Garrett Bartus, who made 39 saves.

“Bartus played amazing,” said Bussell after the Phantoms snapped a two-game losing streak at the Chevrolet Centre. “He was so solid, It took 60 minutes of complete hockey.”

In November, the Phantoms defeated the Bandits by scores of 4-3 and 3-1.

“We haven’t seen them in a while,” said forward Brad Smith, who scored Tuesday’s game-winning goal. “It will be big this weekend, to go in there to [try and] get a couple of wins for the stretch and keep our momentum rolling.”

The puck drops in St. Louis tonight and Saturday at 8:15 p.m.

“St. Louis also is a good team so we’ve got to come out against them and do the same things” that worked against Team USA,” Bussell said.

“This [trip] is huge for us. It’s kinda saying this is the way the playoffs are going to be.”

The division playoff rounds will be best-of-five series.

The four division survivors will qualify for the Robertson Cup Championship Tournament in Mason City, Iowa, from April 28-May 3.

williams@vindy.com