The Lehigh Valley Phantoms entered the third period of their game vs. the Hershey Bears on Friday night down 3-2 on the scoreboard and down 20-18 in the shot count.
By the end of the third period, they’d be down 4-3 on the scoreboard … yet up 45-21 in shots. Not a typo. They outshot the Bears 27-1 in the final 20 minutes of the game.
TWENTY SEVEN TO ONE. And the one Hershey shot was the game-winning goal.
That’s a 42 save performance by Bears goalie Justin Peters. It was a six shot night for both Sam Gagner and Nick Cousins, and a five shot night for Chris Conner and Andrew MacDonald.
Remarkably, not even a single point in the standings gets earned. The Phantoms have now lost four straight. Here’s what coach Scott Gordon told the Allentown Morning Call afterwards:
“I said to the players the first thing we’ve got to do is get in the offensive zone,” Gordon said. “…And then the second part was shooting the puck and they did. There was a lot of good things in the offensive zone that we did that we’re striving for. These last four losses we’ve done more of that in the offensive zone in those four losses and we just don’t have anything to show for it. Right now we’re snakebitten.”
Snakebitten. That’s a word for it.
It’s the AHL so we don’t have great video of this or anything, and the Phantoms official highlight pack left out much of the drama. All we get, though.
h/t Mark Scheig
