Phantoms fall, 5-2, to St. Louis

CHESTERFIELD, Mo. — A third period rally came up short as the St. Louis Bandits pulled away to defeat the Mahoning Valley Phantoms 5-2 on Saturday night in a North American Hockey League game.

Despite the loss, the Phantoms’ fifth in their last six games, their magic number dropped to five to clinch the NAHL North.

The Bandits scored first Saturday night on a goal by Jordan Bougonje, but the Phantoms tied the score with 10:52 left in the first period when George Saad grabbed a deflected shot by David Chaney and fired a shot past Bandits goalie Erick Cinotti.

Stefan Salituro gave the Phantoms their only lead of the game when he took a feed on a power play from Saad and shot a backhand past Cinotti with 13:56 remaining in the second period.

Three minutes later, however, St. Louis’ Tyler Klein and Chris Ciotti scored power play goals within 11‚Ñ2 minutes of each other to give the Bandits a 3-2 lead with 9:33 remaining.

Then with 4:32 left in regulation, Klein got his second goal of the game when he redirected Dan Weiss’ shot through the legs of Mahoning Valley goalie Garrett Bartus to extend the Bandit lead to 4-2.

The Phantoms pulled Bartus in favor of an extra attacker with four minutes to go, but Clinton Bourbonais lifted a slow backhand shot from 150 feet away into the open net for the final margin.

Over the last 25 minutes of hockey, the Phantoms were repeatedly turned away with acrobatic saves by Cinotti.

St. Louis’ power play proved to be the difference, going 2-for-7 with the man advantage. The Phantoms finished 1-for-6.

Bartus made 36 saves but fell to 12-8-3 on the season, while Cinotti improved to 12-4-2 on the year as he stopped 28 shots.

The Phantoms (35-16-5) saw their lead for first place in the division trimmed to four points by the Nationals (33-16-5).

The Phantoms will close the regular season with two home games against the Alpena IceDiggers — Thursday at the Chevrolet Centre and Friday at the Ice Zone in Boardman.