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Phantoms stay alive with wild win
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The Youngstown Phantoms’ Cody Strang (19) looks for an opening between the Indiana Ice’s Nick Mattson (27) and Jarrod Rabey (14) during their USHL game Friday at the Covelli Centre. The Phantoms’ 8-6 win and a loss by Waterloo keeps Youngstown in the hunt for a playoff berth.
By Tom Williams
Youngstown
Thanks to their largest scoring output of the season, the Youngstown Phantoms’ playoff dream remains alive on the final day of the USHL regular season.
But those hopes are faint.
After Friday’s 8-6 victory over the Indiana Ice, the seventh-place Phantoms (22-30-7, 51 points) still can tie the Waterloo Black Hawks (23-29-7, 53 points) for sixth place in the Eastern Conference.
But only a blowout win tonight over the Chicago Steel combined with an extremely lopsided loss by the Blackhawks to Dubuque would allow the Phantoms to earn their first playoff berth.
The tiebreaker that would determine the playoff spot is goal differential for the season. Waterloo has given up 20 more goals while the Phantoms have allowed 44 more. Reversing Waterloo’s 24 advantage seems unlikely.
At least the Phantoms are closing with a bang.
Against the Ice, the Phantoms played with inspired passion to snap an eight-game non-winning streak that had knocked them behind Waterloo.
Mike Ambrosia’s five-point game included a natural hat trick (three consecutive goals) in the first period to lead the Phantoms past the Ice (36-19-4, 76 points).
Ambrosia scored the Phantoms’ second, third and fourth goals as the Phantoms opened up a 5-1 lead.
Ambrosia couldn’t recall ever scoring a natural hat trick.
“Probably in Mites,” Ambrosia said.
Just 14 seconds after the opening faceoff, Dylan Margonari took a feed from Alex Gacek from behind the net to score the Phantoms’ fastest opening goal of the season.
“We just came together tonight,” Margonari said. “We didn’t change anything really, we just went out there and gave it our all. We’ve got a slight playoff chance so we were playing for pride.
“And we’ve had bad blood with them before and it just feels great to pound them,” Margonari said.
Forty-two seconds later, Ambrosia scored with a shot from the left faceoff circle.
“Dylan made a great play on the wall to chip it by his defender,” Ambrosia said. “I kind of just walked in, made a move to the outside to get the defenseman to move and I just shot it.”
Ambrosia knocked rebounds off Ice starting goalie Jon Gillies into the net for a 4-0 lead midway through the first period.
“Mike’s been one of our best players all year,” Phantoms coach Curtis Carr said. “He works hard and he’s been one of the guys who has been really struggling lately to put the puck into the net. So to see him score three was great and to score three in a row was even better.”
Ty Loney, whose three assists included one of Ambrosia’s goals, called his linemate’s play “awesome.
“I love Ambrosia, he’s a hard worker, skilled,” Loney said. “I’m glad he got the [five points] because he’s been working hard all year. I’m really happy for him.”
After falling behind 7-2, the Ice jumped back into the game with three goals in the second period.
“We’re not used to being up by that many goals,” Carr said. “It was kind of a weird game — even the goals they scored, I didn’t think we had bad breakdowns. It seemed to be one of those games where every puck on net was going in.”
Carr said he told his players to treat the 7-5 lead as if it were a 2-1 game that they are used to (the Phantoms’ highest output before Friday was six, twice).
“We need to come out strong [tonight] and get the same amount of goals or hopefully even more,” Loney said. “We need to finish strong for the fans, our parents and everybody that’s watching.”