Phantoms cruise to 5-1 win over Hartford
January 28, 2005 - American Hockey League (AHL)
Adirondack Phantoms News Release
(PHILADELPHIA) - Ben Stafford scored a pair of goals tonight to lead the Philadelphia Phantoms to a 5-1 victory over the Hartford Wolf Pack in front of a crowd of 10,921 at the Wachovia Spectrum.
Randy Jones, B.J. Abel and Ryan Ready also scored, while Boyd Kane and Todd Fedoruk each added two assists. Antero Niittymaki stopped 28-of-29 shots as Philadelphia avenged a season-opening 2-1 loss to Hartford.
Wolf Pack goaltender Steve Valiquette, who entered the game with a league-leading 1.48 goals-against average, made 19 saves on 23 shots. The Wolf Pack had won four of their last five games, but have now lost five of their last seven on the road.
"I thought we had two great practices this week," said Phantoms head coach John Stevens. "There have been weeks where our execution in practice has been good but the energy hasn't been there. This week for two days, we probably had the best energy we had all year. I was encouraged by that and we carried that into the game tonight. We had quality play from all different areas of our team and the penalty killing in the third period was tremendous."
Philadelphia opened the scoring just 1:26 into the game on Stafford's ninth goal of the year. Fedoruk and Kane worked the puck to Stafford in between the circles and the center rang a shot off the far post.
The goal ended Valiquette's personal scoreless streak at 221:50, which came up 28:01 shy of Johnny Bower's AHL record set in 1957.
Playing in his 100th game as a Phantom, Jones made it 2-0 at 12:02 of the first period during a 4-on-4 situation. R.J. Umberger and Patrick Sharp found Jones alone in the middle and the defenseman wristed a shot over Valiquette's left shoulder for his third goal of the year and first since Nov. 19.
Hartford answered with a 4-on-4 goal of its own with 4.2 seconds to go in the period, however, to cut it to 2-1. Jamie Lundmark gained possession in the far corner and fed Jeff Hamilton for a tap-in from the doorstep for his 12th goal of the season.
The Phantoms tallied the lone goal of the second period to re-gain their two-goal advantage. Ben Eager and Riley Cote controlled the puck behind the net on the play before hitting Abel, who followed in his own miss from just outside the crease. It was Abel's third goal.
In the third period, Hamilton hit the post at the 1:50 mark and the Wolf Pack came up empty following a boarding major on Eager.
The Phantoms then made it 4-1 at the 13:54 mark when Valiquette lost sight of the puck and Stafford easily tallied his second of the night into an open net. Kane and Fedoruk again received assists on the play.
"All of our lines are going and we played really responsible hockey," said Stafford, who also scored twice on Nov. 26. "We're making plays when we have to and Niittymaki had a big game with some big saves.
Philadelphia's Tony Voce was called for a high-sticking major with 2:26 remaining and Hartford pulled Valiquette for an extra attacker, but Ready spoiled their plan with an empty-netter at the 18:01 mark. John Slaney set up Ready's sixth of the year.
The Phantoms are back in action on Saturday at 7:05 p.m. when they travel to take on the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Philadelphia then plays in Hershey on Wednesday before returning home to host the Grand Rapids Griffins next Friday at 7:05 p.m.
Phantoms Notes: Wade Skolney, Josh Gratton, Joey Hope and Rosario Ruggeri were injured scratches ... Mark Murphy, Jeff Smith and Stephen Wood were healthy scratches ... Defensemen Freddy Meyer and David Printz both returned to the lineup after missing 19 and eight games, respectively, due to injury ... Philadelphia is unbeaten in its last three home games vs. Hartford (2-0-1) ... The Phantoms improved to 14-1 when scoring four or more goals in a game ... Kane has seven points (3G, 4A) in his last seven games ... Fedoruk has six points (3G, 3A) in his last five games ... The Phantoms debuted their new purple third jerseys.
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