Penalties, slow start combine to stifle Phantoms in season-opening setback

Staff report

ANN ARBOR, Mich.

The Youngstown Phantoms fell behind early Friday night and a slew of penalties kept many of the Phantoms’ offensive weapons off the ice. The result was a 10-3 loss to Team USA in the United States Hockey League season opener.

“We never really reached a level of cohesion between our lines tonight because we didn’t play very long five-on-five,” Phantoms coach Anthony Noreen said. “It’s was a hard lesson that we had to learn.”

Team USA got on the board with less than five minutes left in the first period. The Phantoms found themselves down two men for 1:22 and were able to kill off the one penalty to make it a five-on-four, but could not finish off the other and Evan Allen beat goaltender Matthew O’Connor to put USA up 1-0. Then with 1:49 left in the period Team USA struck again when Trevor Hamilton was able to string a pass to Tyler Motte in the high slot.

Team USA opened up the second period on the power play and Luke Voltin put one past O’Connor just 19 seconds in. Tyler Kelleher added another power-play tally a little more than two minutes later and JT Compher tapped in a rebound to put Team USA up 5-0.

Mike Ambrosia put the Phantoms on the board when he outworked the Team USA defense and muscled it past goaltender Hunter Miska off an assist from Ryan Belonger.

Ambrosia then found linemate Austin Cangelosi open who found the goal to make it 5-2 with 8:41 remaining in the period. But Team USA scored the next three goals before Belonger scored for the Phantoms.

“The biggest positive that comes out of all of this is it’s just one game,” Noreen said. “We’ve got 59 games to get better. We’re going to go back to work on Monday and be ready to play on Friday [against Chicago].”