Philadelphia Flyers prospects: Phantoms split, Aube-Kubel streaks

A weekend split

After five consecutive weeks of playing more than two games, the Phantoms got a bit of a rest as they hosted Binghamton on Saturday night. Anthony Stolarz got the start between the pipes as Rob Zepp was still up with the Flyers due to the injury to Ray Emery.

The Phantoms came out hot to start the game, killing off an early Darroll Powe high-sticking minor less than two minutes into the game. Then just before the halfway mark in the period, Lehigh Valley got on the board. Kevin Goumas scored his fifth goal of the season with assists to the recently hot Zack Stortini as well as steady blueliner Brandon Manning. Binghamton fired off 11 shots in the first period, but Stolarz stopped them all.

The second period was rather uneventful. An interference penalty by Oliver Lauridsen midway through the period was successfully killed off again by the Phantoms, the second of three kills by Lehigh Valley. The Phantoms outshot the Senators 11 to 7 in the period, but the lead remained at one after two periods.

That lead quickly disappeared after two quick goals within three minutes of each other in the third period. Ryan Dzingel scored at 2:50 and 5:40 of the third to take the lead for Binghamton. Just a minute after the Senators took the lead, they took a penalty. After squandering their first two power play opportunities in the first period, the Phantoms had another chance later in the third to tie up the game. The cross-checking penalty on Matt Tassone proved to be crucial when Brett Hextall tied the game up for the Phantoms. That was all for regulation though, and the game headed to overtime.

Manning started the scoring with the secondary assist on Goumas’ goal, and ended it on a goal of his own just over three minutes into the extra frame. Petr Straka and Stolarz (!) picked up the helpers on the game winner. When it was all said and done Stolarz stopped 25 of 27 shots in 63:24 of ice time. Eight different Phantoms got on the score sheet with points in the victory.

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The next day the Phantoms headed to Hershey for a showdown with the rival Bears. Unfortunately, there isn”t too much to be said about this one. The Phantoms fired 37 shots on Phillip Grubauer, who stopped them all. Rob Zepp started for the Phantoms and saw less than half of that amount, just 16 shots. However, two of those 16 ended up in the back of the net and were the difference on Sunday.

The game didn’t even see the usual physicality of a Bears-Phantoms game, with just one fight between Scott Laughton and Connor Carrick midway through the third period. This was Laughton’s second professional fight, his first in the AHL. His first professional fight was of course against Matt Niskanen who concussed him weeks prior.

All in all there were a combined 40 penalty minutes, 53 shots, and two goals: both for the Bears.

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Phantoms point leaders

Cousins got hot in January and hasn’t cooled off. He had a weak start to the season but has 31 points in 24 games this calendar year.

Manning continues to do his thing. Unfortunately the blue line situation for the Flyers leaves him down in the AHL despite decent performance earlier this season in a short stint.

Akeson has been performing as well, with 13 points in ten February games. He still might have some NHL ability left in him.

Laughton has picked up two points, both assists, in his six games since being sent down. He is also a minus-5 which is probably misleading. But since there isn’t much fancystat availability for the AHL I thought it was worth mentioning.

Prospect points

After gushing over him last week, Nicolas Aube-Kubel has continued his hot streak. His six points in his last five games are a hair under his season totals, but he now has a 12 game point streak. He has scored eight goals and added 13 assists for 21 points over those 12 games.

Radel Fazleev scored last night for Calgary and has three points in his last five games. Besides that, the prospects are “slumping” a bit. Samuel Morin and Travis Sanheim both have just two assists in their last five games.

The recently signed Tyrell Goulbourne has just one point in his last five. Much was made of his penalty minute career totals, but he has become a bit more discipline this season. After totalling 109, 135 and 114 PIMs his last three seasons, he has been a bit nicer this season with 69 PIMs. If he can combine a little bit of scoring with his physical play, he has the potential to be a bottom-six guy for the Flyers.