ALLETOWN, Pa – If hockey were a hospital, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms would be on life support. Jonathan Marchessault scored two goals, one shorthanded, and Kristers Gudlevskis made 27 save as the visiting Syracuse Crunch buried the Phantoms 6-1 in Allentown on Wednesday night.
Syracuse dominated right from the start of the game, kicking off the scoring shorthanded at 11:46. With Kevin Lynch off for hooking, Joey Mormina notched his fourth of the season. After taking a drop-pass from Cody Kunyk and ripped a shot from inside the blue line. It appeared Rob Zepp was in position, but the puck took a weird bounce off of defenseman Mark Alt and into the net. The Phantoms had one power play in the period, but it didn’t amount to anything.
In the second, things really started to snowball. The Crunch’s leading scorer, Jonathan Marchessault got his first shorthanded tally and 20th goal of the season at 8:45. After having his initial shot blocked by Adam Comrie, Marchessault found the rebound, and lasered a wrister top shelf past Zepp. Roughly two minutes later, Slater Koekkoek put Syracuse up by three, wiring an unscreened slapshot from just inside the blue line.
It was at that point, tempers boiled over. With Two and a half minutes left, Cody Kunyk buried Alt into the boards from behind, and Brandon Manning wanted payback. The Flyers’ prospect engaged Kunyk, and proceeded to pummel him, even after linesman Luke Murray intervened to separate them. Kunyk was given a five-minute major for boarding, which led to a man-advantage of 2:33 to start the final stanza for the Phantoms.
Unfortunately, the power play wound up extending the lead for Syracuse. Lehigh Valley defenseman Robert Hagg turned the puck over at the offensive blue line, and Marchessault took the puck in on a breakaway, backhanding the puck to the far post and past Zepp. Unfortunately for the Lehigh Valley goaltender, the goal ended his night after 42:19. Anthony Stolarz came in and gave off 2 goals on 12 shots.
Justin Courtnall backhanded a puck through his legs from the edge of the crease at 4:47, and Ryan Martindale roofed a puck over the 6’6 Stolarz 3:36 later to close out the scoring for Syracuse. Gudlevskis, who nearly backstopped Latvia to an upset of Canada in the Sochi Olympics, had his shutout bid busted by Blair Jones midway through the period. Jones, who returned from a one-game suspension for a head shot Friday in Worcester, boomed a slapper from the top of the slot.
Notes: The Phantoms return home to face Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Saturday, and the Manchester Monarchs on Sunday afternoon. There was no medical update on Alt after the game. The Flyers Wayne Simmonds and Andrew MacDonald were injured Wednesday night vs. Chicago, likely necessitating a recall of Manning and possibly F Petr Straka.
Brett Hextall on Manning standing up for Alt: “ It fires everybody up, everybody gets pissed off. Manning goes after that guy there and everyone is happy to see that. Kind of feel like you get even, he kind of gives that guy what he deserves.”
Hextall on the odd bounces: “I think it was the first shift there when that one puck bounced weird on Zepper and they got a scoring chance out of that and I was like holy.. I mean that’s part of the game – weird bounces off the glass and stuff like that. Hopefully one of these games they’ll go our way.”
Assistant Coach Riley Cote on Phantoms’ offensive woes: “Most nights, we’re killing ourselves. It’s a lack of execution, a lack of intensity, especially tonight. I don’t wanna say we got outworked, but they took it to us. One bad pass leads to two bad passes and then it’s a turnover and they spend extra time in the zone…we need to be better as a team.”
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