The Team | PHANTOM PHILES: Draft Week by the Numbers | ||||
|
|
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – These are the Phantom Philes, a weekly comprehensive look at Youngstown’s stop on the road to the All told, last week the Youngstown Phantoms added 24 new faces to the list of candidates to wear the Purple and Orange next season. It’s a daunting number, to be sure.
To help make sense of this dramatic influx of hockey talent, let’s delve into the specifics of draft week by the numbers.
Last season, Youngstown iced one of the largest teams in the league by height, as 16 of the 23 players on the final roster stood at six feet or taller. While many of those towers will be returning, like team captain Adam Berkle and rangy defenseman Scott Mayfield (both are 6-foot-4), the majority of the drafted players are more David than Goliath.
With the caveat that many of the new Phantom prospects are still growing, 14 of the 24 additions measure below the six-foot benchmark. At 5-foot-6, Massachusetts prep-school center Austin Cangelosi (third round, Futures Draft) is the most Lilliputian of the fresh troops, and the Eastern Junior Hockey League’s Peter McIntyre stands at the high end of the ruler at 6-foot-4.
Another area in which the balance of talent has shifted is on the map. The first edition of the Phantoms in the USHL had a western tilt: 15 of the final 23 hailed from points west of Youngstown, most notably including four young men from Michigan, three from Wisconsin and three from the outpost of California.
During draft week, though, the Phantoms brass turned their eyes eastward, choosing only six “westerners” out of 24. Massachusetts is in the running to be the new Michigan, as six newbies come from the Bay State. New York and Pennsylvania also are represented well, claiming four and three draftees, respectively.
In addition, the so-called “non-traditional” hockey markets contributed to the Phantoms’ draft cause, with Arizona, Florida and Georgia each tossing a talent to Youngstown. Ohio certainly wasn’t left out either, not with No. 2 overall pick John Fritsche living in the Cleveland suburb of Parma and East Palestine’s J.T. Miller also finding himself on the Phantoms’ draft board.
Following last Tuesday’s 1994-only Futures Draft, players born as early as 1990 were eligible for the Entry Draft on Wednesday. Considering that USHL teams are only allowed to carry four ’90 players each, the Phantoms eschewed that particular year with three ‘90s likely to return in goalie Jordan Tibbett and forwards Berkle and Cody Strang.
1992 has been mentioned often in the hockey world this week as it marked the previous time the Chicago Blackhawks were in the Stanley Cup Final, but the year was also popular in the Phantoms’ draft room last Wednesday as the second-year club grabbed nine players born 18 years ago. Five Entry Draft selections came into the world in 1993, and four took their first breaths in 1991.
Excepting the six Futures Draft selections, Youngstown pulled the same amount of players from the high school/midget ranks as they did from junior leagues, with nine coming from each level of competition.
The breakdown of players drafted by position was rather conventional. The Phantoms called the names of 15 forwards, seven defensemen and two goalies – numbers proportionate to the ratios found on a typical roster.
PHEELS LIKE THE PHIRST TIME:
Help the offseason move along quickly by looking back at the Phantoms’ first season in the USHL. This week, Youngstown runs its season-best win streak to five with an unlikely triumph over Green Bay:
Wednesday, November 11, 2009: YOUNGSTOWN 3, GREEN BAY 2
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – You can call the Youngstown Phantoms drama kings, as long as you call them winners.
Brian Dowd’s breakaway goal at 12:43 of the second period held up as the decider, giving goaltender Matt Mahalak a much-deserved first home victory and the Phantoms their fifth-straight win, 3-2 over the Green Bay Gamblers Wednesday night from the Covelli Centre.
The Phantoms (7-4-1, 15 points) built a 3-0 advantage through 40 minutes of play on goals by Taylor Holstrom, Scott Mayfield and Dowd, and everything seemed to be clicking for the home side. But Green Bay (7-4-2, 16 points) was tenacious in the third, closing to within one on tallies by leading scorer Anders Lee and Ryan Furne less than three minutes apart.
Resilient Youngstown regrouped in time to smother the Gamblers in the final moments, preventing the visitors from generating any serious scoring chances with goalie Steve Summerhays off the ice for an extra skater. The Phantoms, now 4-0-1 in one-goal games, moved to within one point of second-place Green Bay in the East Division and just two back of first-place Chicago.
Mahalak, getting his first start since Oct. 30 at Fargo, improved to 3-1-1 on the season on the strength of 31 saves. His outstanding play allowed the Phantoms to win despite being outshot 33-9 in the game and 25-5 after the first period. Youngstown’s efficient shooting (33 percent) dealt Summerhays his first regulation loss of the season, dropping the second-year USHL netminder to 6-1-1.
Holstrom got the Phantoms off and running at 12:21 of the first, taking a lead pass from Nick Czinder and tossing an off-wing wrister past Summerhays for his fifth of the season and a 1-0 lead. Youngstown is now 4-1-1 when finding the first goal of the game.
Mayfield showed off his talents with the Phantoms on the power play early in the second. Fellow defenseman Dan Senkbeil found him crossing the Green Bay blue line with speed, and the St. Louis native whistled a blast over Summerhays’ blocker, pushing the lead to two with his third tally.
Dowd’s red light was set up by a brilliant stretch pass by Czech defenseman Andrej Sustr, who was fed by Mahalak prior to that. Mahalak earned the first assist of the season by a Phantoms goalie when Dowd lifted the puck into the goal with 7:17 remaining in the middle frame.
Ryan Jasinsky and Kevin Alberts threw down the gloves for a brief bout in the opening moments of the third, an expected occurrence between pugnacious Green Bay (first in the USHL in penalty minutes) and truculent Youngstown (fourth).
Go to http://www.pointstreak.com/prostats/boxscore.html?gameid=1048817 for full box score.
The Youngstown Phantoms are a Member Club of the United States Hockey League (USHL), America’s only Tier I hockey league and premier developer of National Hockey League talent with more than 100 alumni on current NHL rosters.
Visit www.youngstownphantoms.com or call the Front Office at 330.747.PUCK(7825) for more information on the Phantoms organization. The Youngstown Phantoms are owned by the B.J. Alan Company (Phantom Fireworks), located in Youngstown, Ohio.
Set as favorite
Bookmark
Email this
Hits: 1176 Comments (0)
 Write comment
|
| Last Updated ( Tuesday, 25 May 2010 12:53 ) |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
