Phantoms even playoff series at 1-1 with Sunday win over Green Bay

April 23, 2012 at 12:15a.m.

By Greg Bates

sports@vindy.com

ASHWAUBENON, Wis.

In a must-win game for the Youngstown Phantoms, the players didn’t disappoint.

The Phantoms played Game 2 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series Sunday afternoon against the Green Bay Gamblers with more intensity and urgency than in the previous night’s 7-1 loss. Youngstown scored on all three of its power-play chances to help even the best-of-five series at 1-1 with a 5-3 victory at the Resch Center.

“There haven’t been many must-wins for us all season — this was the biggest game in the history of our franchise, there’s no doubt about it,” Phantoms coach Anthony Noreen said. “The exciting thing and the fun thing about this team has been there’s so many firsts. Every win we get in the playoffs is going to be a franchise record.”

A major key in the Game 2 victory was the play of goalie Matt O’Connor. The Boston University recruit was pulled in the first period of Game 1 after allowing four goals on 14 shots. On Sunday, O’Connor stopped 39 of 42 shots, including 24 in the third period.

“I thought he was great,” Noreen said. “I thought a big part of it was our guys did a really good job of blocking shots and keeping most of the shots to the outside. Bottom line against this team, they’re going to get a lot of shots on you. They’re just too good of a team to keep bottled up offensively.”

After Saturday’s blowout loss, the leaders in the Phantoms’ locker room stepped up and stressed to their teammates they needed to dictate the tempo in Game 2.

“[Game 1] we definitely stepped back a bit and let them control the game and just tried to get back to our game plan and get back to that gritty style we used to play when we’re successful,” O’Connor said. “I think the team did a great job in the third period to hold on and I obviously saw a lot of rubber, so it was nice to shut the door one save at a time.”