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Phantoms win home opener in shootout
Sherwood nets shootout winner for Phantoms in home opener
YOUNGSTOWN
An unlikely hero emerged for the Youngstown Phantoms in their 3-2 shootout win over the Bloomington Thunder in the home opener Saturday afternoon at the Covelli Centre.
Forward Kiefer Sherwood sat on the bench, awaiting his number to be called, as skaters for both teams failed to convert shootout opportunities.
“I’m just trying to study what the goalie’s doing and I just make sure that if I get a chance I’m gonna bury it,” Sherwood said. “I think a lot of credit goes to [goaltender Colin] DeAugustine.
“He played amazing and made a lot of clutch saves at the end.”
DeAugustine’s saves allowed Sherwood a chance to net the game-winner in the seventh round of the shootout. Although it won’t officially count as a goal on the stat sheet, Sherwood was relieved to finally see the puck hit the back of the net after failing to score in the first five games of the season.
“Right now it’s just not going in, but I’m just happy to contribute to the win,” Sherwood said.
It was a team win for the Phantoms (3-2, 6 points), who squandered a two-goal second period lead and allowed the Thunder (3-1-1, 7 points) to force overtime. The team bus didn’t arrive back in Youngstown from Ann Arbor, Mich., until after 2:30 a.m. Saturday — 12 hours before puck drop against the Thunder.
While effects of the quick turnaround weren’t immediately apparent, Phantoms skaters hit a wall midway through the second period. After building a lead behind power-play goals from Bryan Lemos and Kyle Connor — his 50th career USHL goal — the Thunder were able to break through in the final minute of the second to cut the deficit in half.
“Give [Bloomington] credit,” Phantoms coach Anthony Noreen said. “They were putting pucks on the net and getting bodies there, but [DeAugustine] made some huge saves, I thought, at the end of the second period.”
The Thunder’s first goal came from a blue-line shot from Ryan Galt that was headed wide of the net, but took a fortuitous bounce off a leg in front. Their second goal, early in the third period, hit the post behind DeAugustine and sat on the goal line before sliding in. Bloomington’s Patrick Curry picked up the goal, but most of the credit goes to his teammates in front of the net screening the goaltender.
“I just tried to keep my head into it,” DeAugustine said. “I know there’s one bad goal that went off a defenseman, but other than that I just try to keep my head into it and stay focused.”
Despite the early scores, Noreen thought most of his team’s best chances came in the latter half of the game. The Phantoms out-shot the Thunder 11-8 in the third period and 30-27 for the game.
“We need to score more goals,” Noreen said. “We need to bear down and score, because you see how many chances we get and we’ve been getting that many chances every night.”
In the shootout, Maxim Letunov converted for the Phantoms in the first round to answer Bloomington’s goal. After three misses for each side, Jack Jenkins scored for the Thunder. Josh Melnick then extended it for the Phantoms. Two more empty rounds led to Sherwood’s game-winner in the seventh round.
“I kept watching every shooter, but it wasn’t working so I finally just looked down and didn’t watch,” DeAugustine said. “All I did was hear the scream, so I didn’t really see his goal.
“But yeah, it was nice.”