The conversation around the Lehigh Valley Phantoms on Wednesday night was about their inability to defend. They hosted the Providence Bruins, the best team in the American Hockey League (AHL), and it was a battle. The problem is that they allowed six goals in a 6-4 defeat.
The argument can be made that it’s the gap between the Phantoms and the Bruins. The small things are holding them back, and if they round out their game, notably on the defensive end, they’ll look like a top team in the league.
Yes, there are other factors in the rough season for the Phantoms. They take too many penalties and don’t make the most of the opponent’s mistakes. However, the defense has stood out lately, and for most of the season at that. The Phantoms allow 3.22 goals per game and 4.50 in February, indicating that the group has gone from bad to worse as a result of multiple factors.
Phantoms Are Abandoning The Interior
In any league, it’s pivotal to protect the interior of the offensive zone. Hockey, like chess, is about winning the center to control the game, whether it’s a board or a sheet of ice. The Phantoms usually start in their zone with the defensemen protecting the slot but things often break down from there.
“We’re looping, we’re not stopping and not returning to the inside,” Snowden noted after the latest game. The defensemen chase the play in the zone, then leave the high-danger areas open. Ideally, when a play breaks down, at least one skater protects the middle but the Phantoms will keep skating to leave the opponent with open looks. “That stop and start is hard to do when you are tired,” Snowden added.
Against the Bruins, they gave up the high-danger areas of most of the six goals. The defensemen are usually responsible for that area, and the latest struggles can be pinned on them. That said, when the play breaks down, or the unit is struggling, it’s on the forwards to step up and backcheck or help out.
The forwards have done the opposite lately. “We have two guys leave the zone when we’re under pressure,” Snowden stated on one of the early goals in the recent game, and it doesn’t help that the players aren’t blocking shots either. “We have to do the hard things to win. Blocking a shot is a hard thing,” Snowden added, and instead, teams are getting the puck through traffic and into the net. Shot blocking is a team effort, and it requires buy-in. The Phantoms aren’t playing the shooting lanes and are willing to block shots, and it’s costing them, while raising the question of how bought in they are to the system.
Puck Battles Along The Boards
The Phantoms aren’t playing a physical game, and it’s costing them. When Denver Barkey and Carl Grundestrom were called up, the pressure shifted to the veterans who could check to carry the team. They haven’t, and the Phantoms keep losing their puck battles as a result.
Ideally, the Phantoms are a forechecking team, and the puck battles should be won. “We lose a wall battle, don’t protect the inside, it ends up in our net,” Snowden noted on one of the goals in the recent game. When they were a speed-based team, they would avoid these positions to start. Now that they aren’t built around speed, this is where they should step up defensively.
Dive Deeper: AHL: Gap Between Lehigh Valley & Providence
Losing these battles makes things worse. The Phantoms give the opposition too many scoring chances and too much ice because of it. When a forward goes to the boards, they give up more ice, especially in the middle of the zone, as it takes a player out of position. In short, the Phantoms shoot themselves in the foot by failing in an area that should be their strength.
Protecting The Blue Line
The Bruins move the puck up the ice with their forwards often carrying it and the defensemen trailing the play. It allows them to generate more pressure and come at teams in waves. This style forces teams to protect the blue line on the rush, and the Phantoms couldn’t.
The highlight goal in the second period stands out for this reason. The Bruins gashed them on the rush, and it resulted in a goal where the puck was batted out of the air by two forwards and into the net. “I will probably never see that again in my hockey life but we put ourselves in that spot,” Snowden noted on the goal. Hockey is sometimes a game of luck, yet the good teams create their own good luck.
Defending the blue line isn’t just an issue against the Bruins, a team expected to score in bunches. The Phantoms have struggled to stop the rush against multiple teams in their division, and it’s why they are fighting for a playoff spot.
The key is stepping up on the rush and daring teams to chip and chase. It’s something that Phantoms can do but when it happens, it’s pivotal to have the right skaters to retrieve the puck, and it’s where players with speed, like Alex Bump, Anthony Richard, and Tucker Robertson, can help but don’t.
Where The Phantoms Can Improve Their Defense
It starts with the buy-in, and the Phantoms must block shots. From an X’s and O’s standpoint, it’s about structure in all three zones and the ability to force teams to the outside. The goaltending has regressed since the start of the season, and it’s why protecting the net-front goes a long way.
The defense’s struggle is a full-circle moment for the Phantoms. Early in the season, they weren’t great defensively either, and it’s what held them back. “When you’re an offense-minded team, it’s like ‘I don’t want to be in the D-Zone, I want to go play in the O-Zone’ so we’re gonna hammer that,” Snowden stated after their Oct. 24 win over the Hershey Bears. With Bump back and Oliver Bonk finding his footing on the offensive zone, the problems shift back to the defense, and once again are holding them back.
