The Lehigh Valley Phantoms (18-29-1-5), the American Hockey League affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers, went into Rhode Island to take on the Boston Bruins affiliate, the Providence Bruins (29-16-2-0) in Friday night action.
This contest was all about special teams. But in the case of Lehigh Valley, not so special.
Things started well for LV with Cal O’Reilly lighting the lamp for the fourth time this season and with just 1:57 played, the visitors were up.
Peter Cenlarik was whistled for a slashing minor at 10:23 and Lehigh Valley was primed to stretch its lead.
The first of two short handed Bruins goals by Karson Kuhlman (8) just fifty three seconds later, brought it even,1-1.
It took all of 1:12 for Mikael Vorobyev to net his eighth and put the Phantoms up, 2-1.
The first twenty minutes would come to a close with the visitors holding the edge.
Before the stanza closed, Tren Frederic for Providence was whistled for a high stick with 23 ticks.
LV started the second on the advantage but, suffered a case of Deja Vu when banged his second short handed goal behind Phantoms netminder, Alex Lyon at the :57 mark to get it back to square one.
At 3:34, Brendan Gaunce tallied for the 11th time and The P-Bruins finally had a lead at 3-2.
Neither team could light the lamp until Ryan Fitzpatrick doubled the Providence lead at the 12:24 mark.
Lehigh Valley was not going down quietly and closed it to 4-3 on a Andy Andreoff man up goal with 2:34 remaining.
That would mark the end of the goal scoring for the remainder of the contest and Providence prevailed by a 4-3 score.
Icings: Alex Lyon, on recall from the Flyers due to the All Star break stopped 32 of 36 shots in his 58:23 for Lehigh Valley.
Counterpart, Dan Vladar was slightly better with 27 stops on 39 Phantoms chances.