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The Lehigh Valley Phantoms opened a six-game holiday season homestand on Wednesday. Unfortunately, there’s little holiday hockey cheer around Allentown lately. The return to the PPL Center is not a magic fix for what ails John Snowden’s team, The homestand began with a 3-1 loss to the last-place Springfield Thunderbirds.
In any hockey season, there are peaks and valleys. Unfortunately, the Lehigh Valley team itself is in about as big a valley as any American Hockey League (AHL) team of late. They’ve won only three of their last 10 games.
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The loss to Springfield was alarming. It’s not even Christmas yet but the Phantoms are in the dog days of the hockey season. The first two months are about finding an identity and figuring out what works. Then December rolls around, and many teams hit the wall. The stretch hits AHL clubs a month to six weeks faster than their NHL counterparts, perhaps due to the three-in-three runs of Friday-Saturday-Sunday games in the American League. The injuries and mental toll of a season hit a bit sooner. It’s the midweek games that are hard to show up for and power through.
The Phantoms are playing like a team that’s hit that wall. “With a young team, you’re going to hit these areas of the season,” head coach John Snowden noted after the game. The dog days came for the Phantoms, and this young group isn’t prepared for them.
Phantoms Offense is Lifeless
The offense was the strength of the Phantoms to begin the season, and understandably so with all the skill in the forward group. To say it’s a weakness is an understatement. The Phantoms have only scored 11 goals in their last six games, and since one of those goals was awarded after winning 2-1 in a shootout, they’ve officially only scored 10 goals in six games.
“Chances are being generated, we’re just not scoring, you have to shoot with a purpose,” Snowden stated after the game. The Phantoms are moving the puck well and creating open looks. They outshot the Thunderbirds 24-18 and controlled the puck in the offensive zone throughout the night. The plays work in practice and are executed on the ice until someone is asked to put the puck into the back of the net.
The Phantoms have the shooters to pile up the goals. They aren’t hitting their targets. Instead, the shots are going right at the goaltenders, something Snowden added after the game. “We need to hit different areas of the net and then battle for the secondary chances around the net.”
The secondary chances are the other issue with the offense. This is a more problematic one because the Phantoms have struggled to finish scoring chances all season and lack that forward who gets to the dirty areas and nets those goals. In the big picture, this is how goals are scored in the playoffs, and the Phantoms don’t have those players.
This is a team that has the skill and the talent to find the highlight goals. They don’t have the forwards to net the gritty or dirty goals. It’s why the Phantoms might be a fun team to watch at times but not a team that will go far in the long run. For the prospects, the inability to finish scoring chances is a red flag for their outlook to join the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers need one more finisher, especially when a power forward like Tyson Foerster is out for the season. With all due respect to Carl Grundstrom, who has three goals while subbing in the lineup, the parent team needs to replace Foerster’s pure shooting skills.
Phantoms Look Like a Tired Group
The Phantoms are built on speed and winning puck battles by outskating the opposition. Lately, they haven’t skated well. They look like a slow team, and it’s limiting their open looks and ability to wear down teams. The lack of speed or urgency, as Snowden put it postgame, explains how a power play with plenty of skill can go 0-5 against the Thunderbirds.
“I think it’s casual now, we don’t get any depth on our entries, we don’t get to the goalline, we don’t win battles,” Snowden added after the latest game. The Phantoms look like a tired group in the dog days but looked like one at times early in the season as well.
This is a team that doesn’t play well on short rest, whether it’s the second game of a back-to-back or as part of a three-in-three (which is a common occurrence in the AHL). The Phantoms have only won five of their 14 games where they’ve played the night before, and it’s a reflection of their inability to power through the fatigue that comes with the season. This is the time of the year when everyone is tired, and for the Phantoms, it means that the season and the success they saw early on have come to a halt.
This is Where The Inexperience & Youth Show
The Phantoms are a young team that isn’t ready for AHL hockey. For many, especially the stars on the team, this is their first season at this level. Alex Bump came from a college background where they played 30 games in the regular season, a mark the Phantoms are closing in on halfway through the season. Denver Barkey played 50 games or more in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) but the intensity isn’t the same.
“Some of the guys are coming out of college; they’ve almost played an entire season at this point,” Snowden mentioned after the game. It explains how a team that played great across the board for two months can suddenly look hapless.
Alex Bump was asked about the intensity of the AHL season and whether he felt it. “Definitely, for sure,” but added, “At school our practices were really hard and kinda prepared me for this.”
The practices might have been intense but they can’t match the in-game speed or the competition that gets thrown at players. It’s one advantage junior hockey has over the college game, as the prospects can develop through in-game situations. Ironically, Bump, who has a college background, is one of the few players unfazed by the tough stretch.
Phantoms Need More Than a Bump
There was a point in the recent game when it looked like the star power would bail out the Phantoms. Bump scored on a rush with the help of a Barkey outlet pass. The snipe tied the game in the third period and, at the time, gave the team a jolt.
The Barkey-Bump combination showed up late in the game. Unfortunately for the Phantoms, the duo didn’t show up early, and the team didn’t show up at all. The end result was one goal in an embarrassing loss.
Aleksei Kolosov provided a boost in the net as well. While he didn’t face a lot of shots, he kept the Phantoms in the game, allowing only one goal in the second period and another in the third before an empty-netter put the game away. Kolosov has kept the team in games all season, yet they haven’t rewarded him for his efforts, winning only six of his 15 starts.
The recent play is exposing the Phantoms as a team that gets a boost once in a while from a few players but then fails to see the rest of the team deliver. With the Bridgeport Islanders and Hartford Wolf Pack on the schedule this weekend, the whole team must show up to win those games. Yes, those two teams are at the bottom of the Atlantic Division but so are the Thunderbirds, and the Phantoms saw what happened when they took them lightly.
