By Michael Heilman

The Lehigh Valley Phantoms visited the Bojangles’ Coliseum Friday night to face the defending Calder Cup champion Charlotte Checkers. Unfortunately, the Phantoms lost to the Checkers 3-2 in a shootout.

Six minutes and thirteen seconds into the first period, the Checkers took a 1-0 lead on a short-handed goal by Chase Priskie (2) with Colin Markison (3) and Roland McKeown (5) getting the assists. The Phantoms would tie the game four minutes later at 1-1 as Morgan Frost weaved past a Checkers defender and shot the puck to the top left corner of the net to score (2) his second goal of the year with both Reece Willcox (1) and Chris Bigras (1) getting the assists in Frost’s goal. Both teams headed to the locker room tied up at 1-1 at the end of the first period.

The Checkers would retake the lead 2-1 thirteen minutes and forty-nine seconds into the second period as Kyle Wood (1) lasered the shot past Phantoms goalie Alex Lyon for the goal. Eetu Luostarinen (1) and Jake Bean (4) assisted in Wood’s goal. This would be the only goal scored as the Checkers headed to the locker room with the 2-1 lead at the end of the second period.

With under eight minutes left in the game, Phantoms defensemen T.J. Brennan (1) stole the puck and passed it to Nicolas Aube-Kubel (2), who shot the puck passed Checkers goalie Anton Forsberg to tie the game up at 2-2. The game would remain tied at the end of the third period, which brought on overtime.

Neither team could score in overtime, and the game went into a shootout. In the seventh round of the shootout, Checkers Kyle Wood would seal the win for the Checkers and give them a 3-2 win over the Phantoms. The Phantoms had twenty-six shots on goal while the Checkers had thirty-eight shots on goal. The Phantoms are now 0-2 in shootouts.

The three stars of the game were Checkers defensemen Kyle Wood with one goal, Checkers goalie Anton Forsberg, who made twenty-four saves out of twenty-six and Phantoms goalie Alex Lyon, who made thirty-five saves out of thirty-seven. These two teams will play again at Bojangles’ Coliseum tomorrow night at 6 pm.