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Bednard blanks Team USA with big assist from Shea
By Tom Williams
YOUNGSTOWN
About 21 hours after their postseason dreams evaporated, the Youngstown Phantoms played one of their strongest games of the season.
Goaltender Ryan Bednard stopped 22 shots on Saturday as the Phantoms blanked Team USA’s 18-under squad, 3-0, at the Covelli Centre.
“Easy game for me,” said Bednard after his first shutout of the season. “The D kept [the puck] outside and the forwards made some great defensive plays.”
The Phantoms (27-20-4-5, 63 points) limited the Nationals to just three shots in the final period.
“The last two games when we’ve played USA have been solid all the way around,” defenseman Ryan Shea said. “We’ve got to finish out like that.”
Bloomington’s 5-3 win on Friday over Dubuque secured the final Eastern Conference playoff spot for the Thunder.
The Nationals had two excellent scoring chances before the fifth-place Phantoms took a 2-0 lead. Shea played a key role in keeping the game scoreless.
Almost two minutes in, Ryan Lindgren’s long shot trickled through Bednard’s pads. As the puck inched slowly to the goal line, Shea swooped in and knocked the puck back.
“I actually thought [Bednard] had the puck,” Shea said. “Once it squeezed through, I was just in the right place at the right time.”
Bednard didn’t see how close the puck came to crossing the line.
“I looked back at the refs and saw they were eyeing it down,” Bednard said. “It was a close one, a fortunate bounce for me.”
A few minutes later, Kiefer Bellows rang a shot off the goalpost to Bednard’s right.
Moments later, the tide began to shift to the Phantoms when Matt Alvaro was sprung on a shorthanded breakaway. Nationals goaltender Jake Dettinger stuffed his shot, but wasn’t as fortunate on Alvaro’s next try.
After USA’s James Sanchez was whistled for charging into Bednard, Yushiroh Hirano found Alvaro in the faceoff circle to the right of Dettinger.
Alvaro took the pass, stickhandled back and forth a couple of times on his way to the crease, then bounced the puck off a defender’s boot and through Dettinger’s legs for a 1-0 lead.
“Good things happen when you get to the net,” Alvaro said. “It went off a couple of feet and then went 5-hole.”
Thirty-six seconds later, Alex Esposito made it 2-0 after he and Kevin Conley successfully worked a 2-on-1 breakaway that sent Dettinger to the bench and Joseph Woll in goal.
Midway through the second period, Bednard made his two biggest stops within seconds. The sequence began when Phantoms defender Kris Myllari misfired on a shot from the Nationals’ blue line. Keenan Suthers recovered the puck for a 2-on-1 breakaway with Will Lockwood, whose shot hit Bednard’s pads.
The puck rebounded to Trent Frederic and Bednard used his pads again for a save.
“They happened pretty quickly, I just did my best to get my body over there to get a pad on it,” Bednard said.
Late in the second period, Garrett Hall tapped the puck in for a 3-0 lead. Noah Lalonde set up Hall with a soft pass through the crease. The goal returned Woll to the Nationals’ bench.
As the final seconds ticked off, the Phantoms prevented any last-second shots.
“It’s got to be one of the best feelings as a goalie,” Bednard said.