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Phantoms’ memorable season included a streak and a Cup
By Tom Williams
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown Phantoms’ sixth season in the USHL won’t be forgotten anytime soon.
After finishing dead last in the Eastern Conference in 2013-14, the hockey team soared to unprecedented heights.
The Phantoms won 23 more games, setting the franchise record for wins (40) and points (86) in a 60-game season.
Kyle Connor (University of Michigan) won the USHL scoring championship, scoring 34 goals and making 46 assists for 80 points, nine more than Sioux City’s Adam Johnson.
Two other Phantoms finished in the league’s Top 10. With 64 points, Max Letunov (Boston University) tied Sioux City’s Joe Snively and Muskegon’s Griffen Molino for fourth. Josh Melnick (Miami University) finished in eight place with 62 points.
Late in the season, the Phantoms (40-14-6) broke the USHL record with a 17-game winning streak that propelled to the regular-season championship, earning the team the Anderson Cup.
“I’d be shocked if that 17-game winstreak gets touched anytime, especially in the near future,” Phantoms head coach Anthony Noreen said after his fourth season in charge. “Got our names on the Anderson Cup. We’ll put some banners up in the building next year.
“It’s pretty special.”
But not all was glory. The 2014-15 Phantoms’s legacy includes a surprising playoff ouster in the first-round of the Clark Cup Playoffs. Fourth-seeded Muskegon ousted the Phantoms in four games in a best-of-five series. One loss came in overtime. A second loss went to double overtime.
“Obviously, [quick exit] was not want what we wanted,” said Letunov, who was part of another first this season when his NHL rights were traded by the St. Louis Blues to the Arizona Coyotes for defenseman Zbynek Michalek.
“Compared to last season, there were a lot of great things for the city of Youngstown, for the fans,” the Moscow native said.
The 2013-14 season was dismal. What impressed Noreen last summer was how determined his returning players were to improve after an eighth-place finish.
“When we did testing that first day, there was an air of something special, just the way our guys competed in the weight room,” Noreen said. “We hadn’t even been on the ice. If you had asked me right then, I wouldn’t have been surprised by anything this group was able to do.”
Forward Josh Nenadal, who shared captain duties with Ryan Lomberg, said the players came together during conditioning drills last August.
“We did 6 a.m. running in the parking lot,” Nenadal said. “Bonding that close that fast, it was really something. I think that paid dividends to our 40-win season.”
After an 11-7-5 start, the Phantoms celebrated the NHL’s Stanley Cup appearance on Dec. 19 at the Covelli Centre with an 8-4 win over Team USA.
From Dec. 27 through Jan. 31, the Phantoms were consistently inconsistent, going 6-6 by alternating two wins with two losses. The month ended with two defeats to then-first-place Cedar Rapids at the Covelli Centre (6-1 and 5-0). Nothing in those games indicated the Phantoms were about to become, for the first time, the USHL’s dominant team.
“In that 17-game winstreak, I’ve never seen anyone give as much as our guys gave — physically, mentally,” Nenadal said.
They also received a boost at the trading deadline. When the streak hit 10, Noreen and assistant general manager Jason Koehler traded for three experienced players: defensemen Connor McDonald (Chicago captain) and Alec Vanko (Madison captain) and forward Tyler Sheehy (Waterloo assistant captain). They fit in almost immediately and posted positive numbers down the stretch (Sheehy was +10, Vanko +7 and McDonald +4).
The price wasn’t cheap — several draft picks plus promising forward Bryan Lemos (30 points in 46 games) and defenseman Carson Vance.
“You look at Phase I of the [USHL] Draft which is the most important part, we have a pick in every round,” Noreen said of finding players for next season. “Phase II, are we missing a couple of picks? Yeah.
“But if you go back and look at those deals, you would do every one of them again in a heartbeat and without thinking twice about it.”
Melnick noted how the streak paid tribute to the previous season.
“The winstreak and the 17 wins last year matched,” Melnick said. “It’s just been amazing. We just had all the pieces and everyone worked extremely hard.”
In the 58th game, the Phantoms clinched first-place overall with a shootout loss to the Chicago Steel.
No one saw the postseason ending in four games.
“If you look at the scoring chances, we out-chanced them by an insane amount,” defenseman Tommy Parran (Ohio State) said. “And it’s one of those things where one night the puck doesn’t bounce your way and it was consistent.”
Forward Kiefer Sherwood’s 29 goals were second-most to Connor’s.
“All of us were really sad, really disappointed,” Sherwood said as the team cleaned out the Covelli Centre locker room. “It still hasn’t really sunk in — we really believed that Clark Cup was ours.
“That’s the hardest part.”
Next up for Noreen and Koehler is finding replacements for the 13 players definitely moving on to college, including the top six forwards. He said it’s a tradition that he feels he is losing irreplaceable players.
“I said that Year One with Mike Ambrosia, I’m saying Year 4 with guys like Nenandal, Connor, Lomberg, Sherwood, Melnick,” said Noreen, who added, “You know what? A year from now, I’ll be saying it about a new group of guys.”
Noreen expects players on the team’s affiliate list will be given a good opportunity to make the team in June’s tryout camp.
“Our affiliate list is our number-one [way we get] our next year’s players,” Noreen said. “If you look at our guys this year, there’s not many who played this past year who were drafted in last [spring’s draft].
“We have enough guys there to fill every hole immediately,” Noreen said. “Now do we hope to [draft] some guys to upgrade? Absolutely.”
It’s going to be a tough act to follow.