Phantoms set to kick off play-in series against Penguins

2 days ago  /  Broad Street Hockey  /  Read Time: 3 minutes 51 seconds

After a long, and strange, and quite arduous season, the time to get rolling into the playoffs. The Phantoms qualified for the postseason, getting in as the fifth seed in their Atlantic Division, meaning they’ll first meet the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins — as if we haven’t seen enough of those guys — in the best-of-three play-in round.



The Basics



The series kicks off this evening in Wilkes-Barre, with puck drop set for 7:05. For those looking to tune in, while the local Philly area broadcast team (NBCSP) has picked up these playoff games at times in the past, they’re not doing that just yet. So, in that case, the only option to tune in remains to stream it on FloHockey (with a subscription).



Projected Lineup



As always, we won’t have the line combinations confirmed until warmups this evening, but we can make some educated guesses in the meantime. Something like this:



Olle Lycksell – Jacob Gaucher – Zayde WisdomGarrett Wilson – Jett Luchanko – Anthony RichardNikita Grebenkin – Rodrigo Ābols – Alex BumpOscar Eklind – Rhett Gardiner – Givani Smith



Hunter McDonald – Louie BelpedioEmil Andrae – Ethan SamsonAdam Ginning – Helge Grans



Parker Gahagen(Cal Petersen)



Now, the lines at Tuesday’s practice were shuffling around a little bit, but this is more or less what we’re working with. And there’s not really anything too surprising here — this is close to what they were running on Friday, but with a bit of adjustment due to the fact of losing Alexis Gendron (who, officially, is week-to-week with a lower-body injury). To work around that, Eklind comes into the lineup and settles in on that fourth line, while Wilson is elevated to the second line with Luchanko (who he found some nice chemistry with early in Luchanko’s stint as well), and Bump is moved down to the third line to help maintain the scoring potential on that line. The defense stays more or less the same as they’ve been running, with the exception of Andrae coming in, replacing Ty Murchison. And, while the starter in goal hasn’t been confirmed, given how well he’s been playing down the stretch, it would not be a surprise to see Gahagen given the nod for Game 1. But time will tell on that one.



So, who’s got the edge?



This series, in truth, is a tough one to get a read on. The regular season series was not kind to the Phantoms — they went 4-8 against the Penguins and were outscored 30-42 across the whole of those 12 games. Most of those games were close, if that should be any consolation, but the Penguins definitely had the edge. And this certainly is telling in some ways, but it isn’t the full picture. 



The Phantoms are in an interesting position here. That is, there has been a lot of continuity in the roster from last season to this season, meaning that a bulk of the players figuring to be in the lineup tonight will have not just been in for the majority of the regular season but in for last year’s play-in series against the Penguins, which the Phantoms swept in two games. That makes for a lot of players coming into this series with a lot of context, a clearer picture of what they might expect, and that can be helpful for them. But, on the flip side, some of their new additions (who are playing big minutes and expected to factor into this matchup in big ways) haven’t seen much, if any, of the Penguins so far — Grebenkin’s first game with the Phantoms was the final one against the Penguins, and both Luchanko and Bump missed out on all of these matchups entirely. It makes for a competitive advantage in a way, introducing players into the mix who the opponent doesn’t have an extensive scouting report on, but it also makes for a steep adjustment curve for these players, so it will be interesting to see how they’re able to rise to this occasion. 



The regular season series might not have been kind to the Phantoms, but there’s a lot to like about the way they’re heading into this matchup. With the reinforcements added into the mix — both the aforementioned brand new players, but also the returnees from the Flyers, in Lycksell and Abols — the Phantoms now have three lines that look like they can be legitimate scoring threats. With Andrae back in the mix, the defense looks a little more well rounded, and he figures to give them a nice boost at the point on the power play as well. 



They’ve also seen their scoring game coming together nicely over these last three games as well, as they’ve put up 16 goals between them, which is a real positive for a couple of reasons. For one, it’s nice to see things clicking for them again, their offense looking more dynamic, after a bit of a cold spell, but also, seeing more scoring helps take some of the pressure off of the team on the defensive side. As Parker Gahagen pointed out after practice yesterday: it’s been nice to have some more run support. 



All in all, after a bit of a stumble at the beginning of the month, they did well to regain their form, and they’re heading into the postseason on a three-game winning streak, having picked up a bit of momentum (the Penguins, in contrast, were on a two-game skid, which they only just managed to snap in their final game of the season). Anything can happen in a best-of-three series, but the Phantoms have done just about as good a job as you’d want to see to get themselves into a favorable position heading in. 







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