Despite the impeding wrecking ball, the Philadelphia Phantoms showcased the reason they are a team to be reckoned with in the last game played at the Wachovia Spectrum, billed as \u2018America\u2019s Showplace\u2019. The Phantoms handily defeated the Hershey Bears, 5-2, beginning with three unanswered first period goals.<\/p>\n
David Laliberte and Jonathan Matsumoto, Philly\u2019s scoring co-leaders against the Bears this season, added to their numbers with Matsumoto lighting the lamp by tucking the puck inside the left post behind Hershey netminder, Michal Neuvirth at 7:44.<\/p>\n
Rob Sirianni, increased the Phantoms\u2019 lead to 2-0 with his 12th goal of the season when he redirected a point shot from former Bear, Danny Syvret, with the Phantoms on the power play at 16:11. <\/p>\n
Less than three minutes later, and with less than two minutes remaining in the period, Sirianni netted his second power play goal of the period at 18:43.<\/p>\n
Hershey, even though getting questionable credit for Karl Alzner\u2019s lob into the Philly zone from deep in his own zone that was ruled a shot on goal, was only able to manage a feeble four shots on Philly netminder, Scott Munroe, in the first period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew they were going to come out hard, and to be honest, you could use a lot of excuses: a packed building and they were fired up and trying to make the playoffs,\u201d said Bears\u2019 alternate captain, Dean Arsene. \u201cYou could use every excuse in the book, but it really comes down to we didn\u2019t show up in the first period.”<\/p>\n
The napping Bears awoke from their first period slumber in the second period, clawing back into the game on an Andrew Joudrey goal at 8:13. Joudrey, who scored his first goal of the season against the Phantoms at the Spectrum, wristed a shot over the sprawling Munroe, who failed to recover his positioning after Patrick McNeill\u2019s point shot went wide of the net and found it\u2019s way onto Joudrey\u2019s blade.<\/p>\n
Just over a minute after the Joudrey goal, Neuvirth made a brilliant blocker save on Sirianni to allow the Bears to keep their momentum. However, a soft shot from along the boards, off of the stick of Jonathan \u201cMomentum Killer\u201d Kalisnski, somehow eluded the glove of Neuvirth, effectively ending Hershey\u2019s second period surge.<\/p>\n
The AHL\u2019s leading goal scorer, Alexandre Giroux, gave the Bears a glimmer of hope, whipping a wicked wrister rocket past Munroe at 6:03 on the power play. Unfortunately, two goals would be as close to the Bears would get to closing the gap on this evening.<\/p>\n
Sirianni capped off his hat trick with an empty net goal at 18:56 to put the exclamation point on the Phantoms final win on home ice. <\/p>\n
Heading into tomorrow\u2019s rematch at Giant Center, Arsene realizes that the Bears need to step up their game if they want to avoid the panic alarm going into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this was a wakeup call, to be honest with you. We\u2019ve had some good games against them, and whenever we\u2019ve taken them lightly, they\u2019ve taken it to us pretty badly, so hopefully everybody wakes up and realizes they clinched a playoff spot. They\u2019re not going to want to stop there. They\u2019re going to want to send a message for the first round.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"