The Lehigh Valley Phantom will allow himself a taste of it, but only briefly.
The Phantoms fought back from the defending Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears last night, winning 2-0 in Game 3 of the Atlantic Division semifinal series at the PPL Center. The series resumes on Friday and Hershey is now two games to one.
Speaking to reporters about the Bears after the game, the Phantoms coach Ian Laperriere he said, “They never got out of it.” You are not comfortable when you train against them.”
While Hershey made its Calder Cup Playoff six weeks before the end of the regular season, Lehigh Valley had to wait until the final weekend before punching its ticket by finishing sixth in the Atlantic Division. The Phantoms then eliminated third-place Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in a two-game sweep.
The Bears’ winning streak would be the biggest upset in Calder Cup Playoff history in terms of regular season records. The Phantoms finished 38 points behind Hershey in the standings.
“We have no pressure,” Laperriere stressed. “Yes, we want to win. Make no mistake [that]. We want to win. But there is no pressure.”
The Cleveland Monsters have built a certain level of comfort with playing tight games, and that familiarity allowed them to make overtime decisions in their North Division semifinal against Belleville. Last night’s 3-2 victory in double overtime gives the Monsters a chance to clinch the series in Game 4 on Friday.
Cleveland was 21-4-5-3 in one-goal contests during the regular season.
“Just finding ways,” the Monsters coach Trent Vogelhuber said the reporters in the background Owen SillingerGoal got the win last night. “I think that’s what we’ve done all year. We’ve been in tight one-goal games all year and often haven’t found ways to win. They’re comfortable in these situations, and now having a few overtime winners helps boost that confidence.”
The Providence Bruins got a key piece of their roster back this morning as the Boston Bruins return a veteran. Patrick Brown.
Brown played the first two games of Providence’s divisional semifinal series with Hartford, tallying a goal and two assists, before being recalled by Boston on Monday and skating in Game 1 of the NHL club in Florida.
Brown, who captained Charlotte to the 2019 Calder Cup championship, split this season between Boston and Providence after signing as a free agent last summer.
Without Brown last night, Providence dropped a 3-2 overtime decision to the Wolf Pack in Game 3, falling behind two games to one in the best-of-five series.
Captain of the Milwaukee Admirals Kevin Gravel he doesn’t show up on the score sheet often, but his coaches and teammates recognize the value of the veteran defenseman.
The Admirals had to open their regular season without their captain after Gravel was recalled by the Nashville Predators. But after Nashville was eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs last Friday night, Gravel — and the forward Juuso Parssinen – headed to Texas to join his Admirals teammates.
Facing elimination in Game 3 at home last night, Gravel was his usual reliable self on the Milwaukee back end. The 10-year-old, who won the Calder Trophy with the Manchester Monarchs as the player of the year in 2015, also helped Roland McKeownShorthanded’s goal, and he was named the game’s third star in the 5-3 victory.
“You can see why we missed him in the first game,” said the Admirals coach Karl Taylor he told reporters after the win last night. “He was very strong defensively, taking care of our net but also making good plays.”
This is what the Ontario Reign wanted to see from them.
Ontario fell behind 2-0 in Game 3 of their Pacific Division semifinal series against Abbotsford last night, then put together a big second half and eventually eliminated the Canucks with a 4-3 win.
The protector Joe HickettsCalder Cup winner with Grand Rapids in 2017, assisted on two of Reign’s three goals in an 81-second span that turned a two-goal deficit into a 3-2 lead.
“We learned that if we want to play our way, we’re going to be a tough team to beat,” Hicketts told reporters after the win. “When we started putting pucks in and not moving around in the neutral zone, we played fast, we played physical, we took over the game. We got pucks, put bodies in the paint, and were rewarded with four goals there.”
― with files from Patrick Williams
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