Williams: Phantoms surging, even if crowds are not

Last Friday, the Youngstown Phantoms (22-19-0) staged one of the most dramatic finishes in their four-year history. For multiple reasons, it’s unfortunate more fans weren’t in the Covelli Centre to witness it.

Entering the third period, the Phantoms trailed 2-1 to the Green Bay Gamblers, the team that already had beaten them four times this season and eliminated them from the USHL Playoffs last April.

Things did not look good for the hometown skaters when forward John Padulo was sent to the penalty box for charging. Even though Green Bay’s power play is ranked best in the USHL, the Gamblers were unable to manage a shot on Phantoms goaltender Sean Romeo.

Then magic happened, the kind that turns watching an ordinary sporting event into a special moment. Sprung from the penalty box after his two-minute sentence expired, Padulo took a long pass from Nathan Walker then gave the puck to Sam Anas for a two-on-one-breakaway.

“Pads came flying out of the box and it came right to him,” Anas said of Walker’s outlet pass. “I skated as fast as I could.”

Anas thought about shooting, but instead passed left to the unguarded Padulo, who beat Gamblers goaltender Richard Ullberg for a tie at 2.

“When the pass goes through and he has an open net, it’s a great play,” said Anas, admitting he would have been yelled at for not shooting if the play had been foiled. “For us to kill the penalty and score the goal, we didn’t look back.”

Padulo’s goal set up an amazing finish. With six minutes to go, Anas scored for a 3-2 lead. This time, Walker threaded the puck through the slot to Anas perched at the side of the goal. Anas didn’t miss the wide-open cage.

A minute later, Phantoms forward Luke Stork was called for hooking and defenseman Dan Renouf, the team’s most valuable player, received a 10-minute misconduct penalty for arguing with referee Paul Maciejewski.

Few expected the Phantoms could have held off the Gamblers again, but they did.

Stork returned to the ice and crosschecked a Gambler near Romeo. Back to the penalty box he went, this time with defenseman Ryan Lowney (the Phantoms’ second-best blueliner), who was given a misconduct for arguing.

Against the league’s best power play and with their two best penalty killers helplessly watching in the penalty box, the Phantoms killed off the penalty then scored two empty-net goals for a deceiving 5-2 final score.

Romeo said it was his biggest regular-season win.

“This was probably the biggest game of the year, we definitely made it interesting,” Romeo said of the finish. “They’ve been on fire. That last five minutes showed what kind of character we have and the team we are. They did a really good job of blocking shots.”

Anas agreed.

“It was really big, it means a lot to beat them,” said Anas, recalling the playoff ouster. “They beat us four games in a row [this season], two in our barn. It’s just a matter of pride that we can’t have that happen again.”

As the Phantoms enter the final third of the season, no one knows if the future includes a fifth season in Youngstown.

City officials recently commissioned a study on the Covelli Centre’s future. It recommended that Youngstown end its relationship with the Phantoms and hockey.

Phantoms owner Bruce Zoldan, who criticized the study for being shortsighted because no one in his organization was interviewed, holds a trump card if he decides to play it.

The Phantoms have a five-year contract with the city. Because attendance hasn’t averaged 2,000 per game, the Phantoms would owe the city a $75,000 payment to guarantee the fifth season.

Zoldan said Monday he’d be foolish to pay that amount when the Phantoms have lost more than $100,000 per season. Zoldan believes the Covelli Centre needs a sports anchor that guarantees plenty of home dates to bring customers downtown regularly to patronize area restaurants.

What happens next is anybody’s guess. Eric Ryan, the Covelli Centre’s executive director, said nothing will be decided before the Phantoms’ regular season ends on April 13. There are 11 home games remaining and it’s always possible attendance will spike, especially when the team has won nine of its past 12 games and has gone 16-8-0 since Nov. 21.

What’s eerie is that Phantoms are playing their best, just like the Youngstown SteelHounds were in 2008, their third season at the then-Chevrolet Centre. Two months later, the Central Hockey League booted the SteelHounds out of the league for financial reasons.

Phantoms head coach Anthony Noreen said the Green Bay win “shows how much better our team has gotten” since the Gamblers beat them 3-2 on Nov. 11.

“That’s a good hockey team,” said Noreen of the Gamblers (25-14-3), the USHL’s defending champions. “We rolled four lines tonight, everybody played equal minutes except for special teams situations.

“It just shows how much we’ve improved since the last time we played them.”

If only more people were watching.

Tom Williams is a sportswriter with The Vindicator. Write him at williams@vindy.com.