Phantoms expect lively, loud crowd

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

This morning at 10, the Youngstown Phantoms face off against the Chicago Steel in their third annual “Hockey For Health” School Day Game at the Covelli Centre.

Phantoms coach Anthony Noreen expects another lively, albeit different, crowd on hand from dozens of Mahoning Valley area grade schools.

“Last Friday night [against Dubuque] was probably the best atmosphere we’ve had in this building since I’ve been here,” Noreen said. “There’s no doubt you could feel it.

“We know it’s going to be another good crowd [today] and hopefully we can feed off that and play some entertaining hockey for them as well.”

The Phantoms (21-12-3, 45 points) played plenty of that last week, sweeping the Waterloo Black Hawks and Dubuque Fighting Saints.

But the Steel (12-23-1, 25 points) are in the midst of a three-game winning streak after upsets of second-place Indiana and and first-place Green Bay last weekend.

Noreen noted that the Steel’s streak started Jan. 22 with a 3-1 win over the Phantoms in Bensenville, Ill.

“It’s was no fluke,” Noreen said. “They’re a good team and they’re playing their best hockey right now. We need to be ready to go.”

Although the Chicago came away with the win in the last outing, Youngstown has dominated the series with a 15-2-0 record. In the three meetings between the teams this season prior to Jan. 22, the Phantoms out-scored the Steel by a margin of 10-2.

Goaltender Matthew O’Connor, who sat out the 3-1 loss, is 3-0-0 against the Chicago this season and 5-0-0 in his career with a 0.80 goals against average and a .971 save percentage.