The Lehigh Valley Phantoms knew they would have to win at least once at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton if they are to take their Atlantic Division First Round series against the Penguins.
“We played a disciplined road game,” head coach Ian Laperriere said via phantomshockey.com after the game.
Indeed they did. They opened the scoring. They struck in the first minute of the second period to build a two-goal lead. They stifled the Penguins for most of the night, holding them to 22 shots. They stayed out of penalty trouble, too, yielding just a pair of man-advantage opportunities.
For a team that had struggled against Wilkes-Barre, going 1-5-1-0 in their past seven match-ups, it was about as perfect a road game as Laperriere could have asked for. Still, there is enough room for improvement for Laperriere to hone in on going into Game 2 at PPL Center on Friday. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s lone goal came off a turnover and missed coverage.
Laperriere, who played 1,083 NHL games, could relate to that breakdown.
“I was like that as a player,” he said. “When everything goes well, I was like, ‘I’ll try something different.’ But we came back to work, and that’s why we came out with the win. We have a great group here. The leaders are leading.”
Being a part of history has its charms, but sentimentality only goes so far in the postseason.
The Belleville Senators’ 3-1 win in Game 1 of their North Division First Round series marked the first Calder Cup Playoff win in team history. B-Sens players recognized the moment’s importance for a franchise that had only played two playoff games in six seasons before last night. Belleville had a Calder Cup contender in 2019-20 before the COVID-19 pandemic ended that season.
In fact, last night’s win came nearly 10 years after an Ottawa Senators AHL affiliate had last won a playoff game; the Binghamton Senators defeated Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in overtime, 4-3, on April 26, 2014.
“It’s special,” Belleville forward Josh Currie said to bellevillesenators.com. “Any time you can be a part of the first of something for an organization, it’s definitely a special moment. We definitely feel it in there.”
Now they go after that second win on Friday in Toronto. The past few weeks have been emotional ones in Belleville as the team won eight of its last nine regular-season games to earn their trip to the postseason. They also needed a third-period comeback in their second-to-last contest of the regular-season slate to nail down their North Division playoff berth. That late-season pressure may be serving the team well now.
“It’s kind of been like playoff hockey for us the last eight or nine,” Currie continued. “We’re already in that mentality, and I think that helps you. We’re feeling good, and we’ve been playing this type of hockey for a while now.”
In the end, a flurry of transactions all worked out for the Colorado Eagles before they faced Abbotsford in Game 1 of the teams’ Pacific Division First Round series last night.
The Eagles had lost top goaltender Ivan Prosvetov on recall to the Colorado Avalanche earlier this week. But after backing up Alexandar Georgiev in Game 2 of the Avs’ Stanley Cup Playoff series in Winnipeg, he returned in time for the start of the Eagles’ first playoff game.
Prosvetov came back with a pair of teammates as well. Returning to the Eagles were captain Brad Hunt and forward Chris Wagner. Hunt was a member of the AHL First All-Star Team and finished second in the league among defensemen with 49 points (16 goals, 33 assists) in 70 games. Wagner returned in the middle of the season from an extended injury and provided 14 points (eight goals, six assists) in 21 games for the Eagles.
All three players played in the Eagles’ 4-2 loss to the Canucks. The Eagles will try to avoid elimination on Friday.
After participating in the Big Ten Tournament, NCAA tournament play and the Frozen Four during his days at the University of Michigan, a best-of-three series is not going to faze Erik Portillo.
He also battled for Sweden at the IIHF World Junior Championship. Win-or-go-home hockey is nothing new.
So in his first postseason game as a professional last night, it was little surprise that Portillo was up to the challenge, making 30 saves to help lead Ontario to a 5-1 win against Bakersfield in Game 1 of the teams’ Pacific Division First Round series.
“I had a good background with this playing a lot of playoff games in college, a lot of one game on the line, so I felt prepared,” Portillo told ontarioreign.com after the win. “I think the team helped me out as well. We felt very comfortable going into this game.”
Portillo, 23, came to the Los Angeles Kings organization in a March 2023 deal with Buffalo, who had selected Portillo in the third round of the 2019 NHL Draft. Expectations were high for the 6-foot-6, 224-pound Portillo as he began his pro career with the Reign, and he justified them. His .918 save percentage tied for sixth in the AHL, and he went 24-11-3 with a 2.50 goals-against average in 39 games.
The Kings had originally planned for Portillo to partner with NHL veteran David Rittich in Ontario, but an early-season injury to Kings goaltender Pheonix Copley prompted Rittich’s recall, and Portillo saddled much of the workload.
“The more they trust me, and the better I do, the more we’re just going to thrive together,” Portillo added. “I’m excited to just keep pushing here.”
― with files from Patrick Williams
