Sunday, March 15, 2015
Dominate Sioux City; streak at 14
YOUNGSTOWN
The Youngstown Phantoms have spent the last month and a half showing the USHL they’re for real.
The past 36 hours proved they might be more than that.
The Phantoms completed a weekend sweep of Sioux City Saturday night at the Covelli Centre in what had the feeling of a playoff atmosphere between two first-place teams. After the dust settled, and the penalty minutes were tallied, no matter how you sliced it, the league’s hottest team dominated the Musketeers.
“I don’t even know if I can describe it,” Phantoms forward Josh Nenadal said following a 5-1 victory.
“I just feel like every time we go out there it’s not going to be good for the other team.”
That was especially the case Saturday night in front of 3,066 fans — one of the largest crowds the team’s had in a while. The fans were treated to the team’s 14th consecutive win, 207 penalty minutes — which included five fights — and a performance that took one of the league’s best teams completely out of their game.
“It was awesome,” Phantoms head coach Anthony Noreen said. “There was never really a quiet moment during the game. I thought it was as entertaining a game to watch as there is.
“If someone was here tonight and didn’t have fun, I’d like to get an explanation why.”
Noreen added that he felt his team fed off the crowd’s energy all night and it started from the drop of the puck.
The win gives the Phantoms the most points of any team, two more than the Musketeers.
Third line forward Matt Alvaro started the scoring early, cleaning up a rebound in front of the net, to give the Phantoms (33-13-5, 71 points) a shorthanded goal. Lukas Craggs and Jacob Wilson ended the period with the game’s first fight — a theme that would continue throughout.
“We’re trying to play playoff hockey and that’s the kind of hockey it’s gonna take to win a championship,” Nenadal said. “We take pride in getting in the greasy areas, taking the bodies, rubbing a team out of their ways and just taking advantage of all the opportunities we get.”
In the second, Kyle Connor scored a beautiful power-play goal, slicing between a host of Musketeers defenders, before slipping it past goalie Collin Olson. Later in the period, Alvaro added his second of the game and the Phantoms second power play goal.
“We know how good we are, we know what we have in [the locker room] and we’ve known it since day one,” Alvaro said. “I think it’s all about the chemistry in there and we’re all buying into the system.”
The third period is when things got really fun — at least for those in black. Newcomer Tyler Sheehy scored his first goal as a member of the Phantoms on an early power play to make it 4-0. Getting pushed around all night, the Musketeers (32-16-5, 69) decided to take exception and drop the gloves. The most entertaining of the remaining fights was between Ryan Lomberg and Jake Durflinger, who connected on a few heavy punches.
“We want to be hard to play against,” Noreen said. “That’s one of our No. 1 goals, something we’ve talked about since day one.
“I thought tonight we were very hard to play against.”
Phantoms net minder Chris Birdsall lost his shutout bid late in the game, but Connor iced it with an empty net goal.