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It's finally the preview for the home opener. Opening night at the Covelli is just around the corner and after a few trips to Plymouth, I'm really looking forward plopping my butt into my usual seat. This season, the Phantoms (2-1-0-0) kickoff the home stand against the Madison Capitols (1-1-0-0). This is also our first test against a normal USHL team in regular season. The only other game we played against a USHL team other than the NTDP was a 3-1 win over Cedar Rapids in preseason.

Madison comes into their third USHL season looking to improve over their sub .500 performance in their freshman and sophomore seasons. The Caps started their third season with their fourth head coach. After some ownership changes in the off-season, Ryan Sutter has taken over as GM and named his brother Garrett Sutter as a coach, as well as Garrett's son Jake as an assistant coach. Yeah, sounds shady but the Sutter family is synonymous with American hockey so we'll hold off judgment until we see if they can accomplish what the last three regimes have not. This season they have a little more firepower up front. Mick Messner , who played 27 games for the Caps last season, has landed himself on the NHL's CSS report with a goal and 2 assists on the season. Rookie Kamil Sadlocha is also on the CSS report in  the early goings of the season. Eetu Selanne, son of NHL great Teemu Selanne, has a goal and an assist in his 2 games and showed a lot of taent during preseason. Also looking impressive in preseason is Russian returning forward Eugene Fadyeyev, a smooth skater with good vision and also doesn't slack off on the defense. Marcel Godbout is another player that the Phantoms should look out for. Godbout isn't exactly a prolific scorer, but the fourth year, four team USHL veteran scored 6 goals as well as adding 3 assists in 10 games against the Phantoms last season. Cole Hults and Robby Fosdick make up most of the Caps experience on the blueline, a solid pair of returning defensemen.  Daniel Lebedeff is the top goaltender, getting the start in both games this year for the Caps. He's the USHL veteran presence, having played in 6 games for the Caps last season posting 3.06 GAA and a .896 SV%. This season he's starting out with an impressive 1.52 GAA and a .955 SV%. Dryden McKay played part a single game last season for the Green Bay Gamblers, a little over half a period. He let in 2 goals on 6 shots and ended up with a 11.39 GAA and a .667 SV%. Ironically, the game he played in was against the Caps who picked him up after the Fall Classic where McKay was still playing for the Gamblers.

The Phantoms return to the Covelli with a solid offense, leading the USHL in total goals scored with 16. Austin Pooley is the league leading goal scorer, tied with Chicago's Greg Prinz with 4 on the season, as well as second in the leage in total points with 5, tied with several other players. This is a much appreciated surprise from a guy who was brought in for grit and and his PK prowess. We have a host of guys looking to be big scorers, Brett Murray, Max Ellis and Griffin Loghren all impressing more than just this blog writer. Heck, I could name half the forwards on the roster, Alex Esposito, Nicholas Werbik, Brad Cocca and Coale Norris all look like potential 20+ goal scorers. On defense, Michael Karow has landed himself on the NHL CSS. Marcus Joseph has great two-way skills as well.  It's a little early in the season for me to see how the defense is going to shape up, especially without playing any regular USHL teams yet. Both Darion Hanson and Ivan Kulbakov look strong in net. Hanson got a pounded a little on opening night but rebounded well when he played in the second game last weekend. He's posted a 3.00 GAA and .900 SV% in his 2 starts. Kulbakov is a more aggressive goalie, like many Eastern European goaltenders. In his only game he posted a 1.00 GAA and a .941 SV%. The race for the top goaltender is still in effect and I won't make any predictions yet.

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It's good to be back home. After a couple weekends in Plymouth, Michigan, the Phantoms looked to kick off their home season with the Madison Capitols coming to town. We were hoping to build on the success of last week against the NTDP U17 squad but playing a regular USHL team is a much different beast than playing against kids in face cages, no matter how cherry picked the kids are. Fortunately, the Phantoms were more than up to the task, especially netminder Ivan Kulbakov, as the Phantoms blanked the Caps 2-0 in the first ever home opener shutout in team history.

The opening frame was mostly a feeling out process for two teams that haven't played each other since late last season. The Phantoms quickly settled into their game, an aggressive forecheck and backcheck that left the Caps struggling to get out of their zone and unable to to really set up much in the Phantoms end. Despite the Phantoms not giving hem much room, the first frame was pretty evenly played. That is until a Michael Karow dump in took an unusual bounce off one of the stanchions. Madison goaltender, Daniel Lebedeff, had gone behind the net to cut off the dump but the puck went right into the low slot area for Austin Pooley to easily put into an empty net for his 5th of the season at 16:18 of the first. Shots on goal were 7-6 Madison but the Phantoms had the lead heading to the locker room after the first.

The Phantoms began to squeeze the Caps in the second, holding them to just 4 shots on Kulbakov. On at least two occasions it looked like they initiated contact with the Phantoms goalie in an attempt to stir things up and possibly cause the aggressive netminder to think twice about playing the puck. This backfired in two ways. First, they got called for a minor penalty on the second one, clearly clipping him when he did not have the puck. Secondly, the Eastern European goaltender did not seem to be rattled and quite the opposite, seemed more into the game and his teammates responded physically to protect their goalie. The frame was scoreless with the Phantoms outshooting the caps 9-4. 

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Well, you can't win 'em all, or at least they say. However, last night the Phantoms played the same team as they did 24 hours prior and got a much different result. As I predicted, Madison dug down and finally started to find their offense and the Phantoms, despite a late push, were unable to equal the Caps.

The Phantoms drew first blood. A Brett Murray shot was blocked by a Madison skate but Alex Esposito swooped in to fire the puck from a bad angle that deflected off of Caps netminder Dryden McKay 8:52 into the first period. The Caps would get their first goal of the weekend on a mess in front of Phantoms goalie Darion Hanson. An initial shot appeared to hit the post and sit behind Hanson and was swept out by the defense, only for the Caps to put back into the net. The goal was initially waived off, I assumed for goaltender interference, but after a review the Caps were awarded the goal, Kamil Sadlocha getting the credit. The Phantoms outshot the Caps 11-7 but the score was tied going into intermission.

The Caps would get things going in the second and the Phantoms would find themselves sputtering a bit. The Caps would get their first lead of the weekend at 13:01 when Konur Peterson backhanded a rolling puck in the slot that found it's way through traffic and underneath Hanson. Alex Esposito would tie it when McKay would try to play the puck behind his net and the forecheck of Nicholas Werbik managed to dig it out and center it to Esposito for his second of the night with 3:02 left. The tie would not last even a minute, Eugene Fadyeyev snapping a one-timer from the left side faceoff circle just 0:37 after the Esposito goal. Shots were 6-5 caps in the frame. 

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