It’s a division semifinal rematch between the Phantoms and the Bears, and the Phantoms are looking to keep their substantial momentum rolling.
After a tidy enough first round play-in series for the Phantoms, which saw them upset their divisional rival Penguins in a two-game sweep to kick things off, they’re back at it tonight for the first of their divisional semifinal series against the Bears. It’s a familiar matchup, this one, as these two teams met in this round last year, for a series which did see the Bears pull away in four games, but one which came out almost surprisingly competitive on the Phantoms’ side. For the team, though, there remains the feeling of falling short, and one which they’re looking to right this time around.
The Basics
The Phantoms will kick off the series — a best-of-five this time around — with two games on the road, with the first tonight at 7:05, and the second on Friday. They’ll then swing home for Game 3 on Sunday at 5:05, and if necessary, Game 4 will also be in Allentown on Friday May 9, and if we go to Game 5, that’ll be in Hershey on May 11 (got all that?).
For those looking to watch these games, for the most part, our only option remains streaming them through FloHockey (which requires a subscription, alas). However, for those in the area where you get Service Electric as your provider, you’ll be all set with these games — they’ll be broadcasting the home games as usual with all of the regular crew, and they’ve worked out an agreement to pick up the games in Hershey as well, picking up their feed.
Projected Lineup
As always, we won’t have the line combinations confirmed until warmups this evening, but we can make some educated guesses in the meantime. Something like this:
Olle Lycksell – Jacob Gaucher – Zayde Wisdom
Nikita Grebenkin – Rodrigo Ābols – Alex Bump
Garrett Wilson – Jett Luchanko – Anthony Richard
Oscar Eklind – Rhett Gardiner – Givani Smith
Hunter McDonald – Louie Belpedio
Emil Andrae – Ethan Samson
Adam Ginning – Helge Grans
Parker Gahagen
(Cal Petersen)
The Phantoms didn’t do any tinkering with their lines between games 1 and 2 of last series, and with everyone presumably heading into this one healthy, we imagine the lines will look the same come puck drop tonight (unless they have an injured player that’s not ready to go). Who doesn’t love a bit of continuity?
So, who’s got the edge?
While the regular season series between the Phantoms and the Penguins may have been something of a lopsided affair — and ultimately one which did not matter, given how the Phantoms overcame the early results — the one between them and the Bears was much closer. The Phantoms came out of it with a slight edge as far as the results were concerned, with a 5-4-1 record against Hershey across their still significant 10 games played, though they were outscored 28-30 across that span. We also might recall that we saw the Bears not too long ago, in the regular season finale for these two, and while the rosters were still a little wonky, with some players being rested, the Phantoms came away with a pretty comfortable 4-3 win.
One of the X factors here is going to be the rosters themselves. That is, while the Phantoms saw their roster bolstered in a big way over the last month or so of the season, between new additions turning pro and players returning to them from the Flyers after the conclusion of their season — and those players being ones who have all factored in so far in a big way — no such reinforcements have come for the Bears. With the Capitals still well alive in the NHL playoffs, they’ve been carrying Ethen Frank, Ethen Bear, and Alex Alexeyev, as well as goaltender Clay Stevenson as part of their black ace squad, and unavailable to Hershey. Now, this team is still an undeniably good one, but they’re not looking quite as loaded as they did earlier in the season. You certainly can’t give them too much space to work with, still, but if the Phantoms are able to keep all three of those scoring lines rolling, they might well we able to exploit a bit of a depth advantage.
There also might well be something to be said for momentum here. That is, the Phantoms are coming into this matchup riding a high from sweeping their play-in series, which punctuated a three-game winning streak to close out their regular season. Hershey, for contrast, limped a little bit into the postseason, with just two wins in their last five games, and have been just waiting in the wings for the last week and a half, waiting the start of this series. And while a first-round bye can certainly benefit any players who are a little banged up and needed a bit of rest, it can often beget rust which will need shaking off. We saw this in last year’s series too, where a rally in Game 3 from the Phantoms seemed to rattle the Bears a bit, and made the series interesting. If they’re able to come out hot here and capture some of that same magic, catching the Bears while getting up to speed, it could bode well for them.
