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GLENS FALLS — So what does Andreas Nodl have in common with Andre St. Laurent, Jeff Rohlicek, and Mike Sillinger?

Here’s the answer to the trivia question I never thought I’d be asking:

They’re the only four Adirondack players in AHL history who’ve scored on a penalty shot. Nodl joined that group Friday night when he beat Damon Dubnyk in the second period of the Phantoms 4-3 comeback win over Springfield.

Pretty amazing that in the city’s 20 year AHL run, only three players turned the trick, the last being Mike Sillinger on April 17, 1993. Anyone remember that one? You can see the entire list by clicking here. Good time to remind you that you can find all kinds of Adirondack stats on our main hockey page. Check out the For the Record section on the lower right hand side.

Revisiting the keys to the game:

1) Who will start in goal and how will they play? Johan Backlund got the nod and he was strong, stopping 26 of 29 shots. Of the three he allowed, I can’t really blame him for any. One was power play, another a clean break, and there was plenty of traffic in front for the third.

Here’s coach Greg Gilbert on Backlund:

“Johan was real good. He made some nice saves for us.”

2) Can the Phantoms win the special teams battle? The Phantoms were 1 of 8 and the Falcons were 1 of 6 so you make the call. This almost bit them in the second period when they failed to score on a two-man advantage, then promptly gave up a power play goal to Springfield.

It’s all about results, but visually, the power play was much better. As Gilbert said, they had many more chances than last week, now it’s just about finishing.

Here’s Nodl’s take on how they can do that:

“I think we’re trying to make the pretty play too often. I think we should just go back to the basics: shooting the puck hard from the point and crashing the net. We’re all trying to get a feel for each other.”

3) Are the Phantoms in-sync defensively? My verdict: better (they outshot Springfield 43-29), but perfect. I can’t give any better analysis than what Nodl said, so I’ll defer to him:

“We still have a lot of trouble with our D-zone coverage, we still have two many turnovers, as soon as clean up our own end we have the potential to be a really, really good team.”

4) Can the first line get on track? Nodl replaced Jason Ward on the Jared Ross line and was the game’s best player. I’m not sure any of these lines are clicking to their full potential yet, but it’s very early. As Nodl said, guys are still trying to get used to each other,

5) Who will be the veteran scratch? Ward and Ryan Dingle sat out.

Lines:

Forwards: Kaspar-Ross-Nodl; Maroon-Matsumoto-Laliberte; Kolanos-Kalinski-Beaulieu; Clackson-Klotz (with rotating center). Defense: Jones-Marshall; Curry-Bartulis; Bourdon-Mormina.

Final notes:

– Can’t say enough about the lift Nodl’s penalty shot gave the team. They had 15 straight shots and then in less than a minute were down 2-0. Nodl’s goal brought life to the team and crowd.

– The 3,584 crowd is decent, but I’d feel better to crack the 4,000 barrier. Maybe that’s expecting too much. We’ll see. Next weekend with Hershey and Albany, I’d expect

– Funny moment that became the lead of my print (and soon online) game story: Krys Kolanos feeds Jon Kalinski for the goal that made it 3-1. Then Kolanos piles on him in the celebration and bloodies his nose. Obviously, Kalinski will take that any day. It got a good chuckle up in the box.

– Tim

Tags: copying, Kingsbury

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 11:06 pm and is filed under Phantoms Forum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.