Photo: Nina Weiss
Last week, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms were shutout by Matt Murray and the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. This week? Different goaltender, same result.
Tristan Jarry (pictured) had a 17 save shutout, and Clark Seymour, Jean-Sebastien Dea, and Bryan Rust added goals as the Penguins downed the Phantoms before a standing-room only crowd of 8,468 Wednesday night at PPL Center in Allentown.
In the first, The Penguins controlled puck possession and zone time in large chunks. Midway through the period, their efforts paid off. Seymour rifled a slapshot from the near point and deflected off of Phantoms' defenseman Maxim LaMarche and past Jason LaBarbera. It was Seymour's first of the season. Assists went to Ty Loney and Josh Archibald. Lehigh Valley had a great chance late in the period, but Andrew MacDonald couldn't finish a tap in chance just before the horn. Lehigh Valley was outshot 11-3 in the period.
After 3 penalties in the first four minutes, (two on the Phantoms, one on Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) J.S. Dea made it 2-0 on his 8th of the season at 11:57. LaBarbera went behind the net to play the puck. He passed it directly to Dea in the near circle, He skated into the slot and backhanded it over the scrambling netminder. Lehigh Valley had a couple of great chances after the goal. Leier hit the post with 5:30 left and Davis Drewiske missed the net on a two on one with Tyrell Goulbourne as the period expired. Shots were equal at nine in the period.
In the third, Lehigh Valley had a great chance to cut the lead to one six minutes in. Andrew MacDonald took a point shot that Leier tipped, but Jarry was equal to the task. Bryan Rust notched his first since returning from injury when he finished a pretty tic-tac-toe passing play. He finished off a feed from Tim Erixon in the slot at 13:28. Will O'Neill also picked up an assist. Shots in the frame were nine apiece.
Notes: Brandon Alderson and Jay Rosehill were healthy scratches. D Jesper Pettersson and G Martin Ouellette were assigned to ECHL Reading. LaBarbera's start was his first since November 8th. It was the first time in the history of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton franchise that they have had three consecutive shutouts dating back to their inaugural season in 1999-2000.
Quotes: Jason LaBarbera, on the second period goal: "I thought our winger was gonna be there. I mean, I've made that play my whole career. Sometimes you kinda wait for that first forechecker to take away the wall so you can move it up the gap. I don't know, I've always had a winger be there. I obviously didn't read it very well."
On the importance of facing a lot of shots in the first: "It makes your life a lot easier, for sure. There's nothing worse than having that layoff and stand around, waiting, waiting, waiting and waiting. It was nice to get some shots early and not feel too jittery. I felt good."
Head Coach Scott Gordon on the quality of the shots his team did get: "I don't think we did a very good job of winning shots in the slot area. Just getting to higher quality situations. In the first period, other than a few shifts, we didn't generate in our offensive zone time, that's why we had three shots. The first couple shifts were pretty good, except we didn't get any shots. We have the one shift were we're stuck in our zone and we don't get an rhythm to the game early, and that's kinda the way the rest of the period went."
3 Stars: 3) WBS-Jean-Sebastien Dea (Goal) 2) WBS-Clark Seymour (Goal) 1) Tristan Jarry (17-Save Shutout)
Up next: Lehigh Valley faces the Hershey Bears on Friday at 7:05 PM at PPL Center.
