This almost felt like the first game of the rest of the season, the first time in a while I went downstairs without a storyline, just a game: They started slowish, they came back, and the Phantoms got the goal.
The storyline down there seemed to be that they really wanted this one, and it didn’t happen.
“Any time you play a three-in-three game, it’s really about the first period,” Brent Thompson said. “It’s about getting control of the game and not chasing the game.
“Obviously, the first period, I didn’t think we were as sharp as we could be, as edgy or as hard to play against as we need to be.”
Most of my chat with Bracken Kearns, who had three linemates leave on him in three games, wound up in the paper, but the gist was that no matter how well they’ve been playing, they had a game to win today, and they did not, and he’s ticked off about it.
“We played well, but a few little details, we didn’t get the job done tonight,” Kearns said.
…..
I missed live that Colin Markison took a hit up high from Colin McDonald late in the second period; that’s apparently what precipitated his departure. Josh Ho-Sang took a hard hit from Robert Hagg into the end boards after a nice rush on the power play, and he didn’t return. Thompson said they’ll be evaluated; he seemed to think they’d be OK. They don’t play again until Saturday.
Only the third time they finish with more power plays than their opponent. And that after the Phantoms had the first three in the first period.
I feel a lot better about what I thought I saw in warmup. Lamarche and Miele were both definitely out there, then scratched. I thought I had Fazleev, too, who wound up in. (They went, in fact, exactly as they rushed.) Anyway.
Prescout, though Binghamton plays both Albany again and Utica before it hosts Bridgeport next Saturday.
The Buffalo News on Anders Nilsson’s helmet and the pride flag on it.
Teddy Purcell winds up in Ontario.
They’re off tomorrow after the three-in-three. More Tuesday.