Thunder silenced

January 17, 2017 at 12:05a.m.

— hockey —

YOUNGSTOWN

The Youngstown Phantoms finally got some revenge against the Bloomington Thunder. For the first time in a year, the Phantoms topped the Thunder, 4-1, Monday afternoon at he Covelli Centre.

Despite sitting two spots below the Phantoms (19-11-3-1) in the standings, Bloomington (16-13-3-0) has had their number.

The Thunder had won its last six meetings with the Phantoms. The Thunder are considered to be one of the teams most responsible for last year’s tumble out of the playoff picture.

Only four players from last year’s squad are still around, but there’s new reasons to be angry with Bloomington. When they last met in November at the Covelli Centre, Bloomington swept Youngstown in two games by a margin of 7-2.

“We have some returning guys that have some fire in their bellies and they swept us on our home ice and that’s unacceptable for us,” said Phantoms forward Austin Pooley, who scored two goals.

“We were ready for this one and had them circled on the calendar.”

Phantoms goaltender Ivan Kulbakov made 28 saves to earn the win.

The Phantoms needed about a dozen shots to establish a three-goal lead. Youngstown held the lead despite getting outshot 29-18 with just three shots on goal in the third period.

“It’s ebbs and flows of the game,” Phantoms coach Brad Patterson said. “I think as the third period got in there, they tried stretching guys trying to get behind our D, so I had to keep a few guys back and look to shut stuff off in the neutral zone.”

The home side opened the scoring midway with through the first period with Pooley’s power-play goal. They took a 2-0 lead later that same period when the puck bounced in forward Eric Esposito’s favor.

Esposito was almost parallel to the goal when it looked like he tried to pass toward the slot. Instead the puck deflected off a Bloomington player into the net.

The two-goal lead grew to three after Chase Gresock’s shot from the left faceoff dot. His first attempt on goal was blocked, but the deflected puck went right back to Gresock, who put it past Halladay.

Bloomington broke the shutout in the third period with Wyatt Kalynuk’s 5-on-3 power play tally midway through the period.

“I thought we were on our heels for the first five or six minutes and they got one 5-on-3,” Patterson said. “After we killed the remaining part of that penalty, we were a little bit better on puck management and being away from the puck improved a lot over the final ten minutes.”

Pooley collected his second goal in what he called one of the longest shots he’s taken. He went for the empty from his corner of the rink.

“I was in the corner and the defense was pinching in on me, so I thought I’d go for it,” Pooley said. “We were up by two and fortunately, it went in.”

The win allows the Phantoms to win two of three in their most recent homestand and they’ve won consecutive games for the first time in 2017.

They’ll play three consecutive contests on the road with two in Dubuque and one in Bloomington.