Phantoms Overpower Bears

PHILADELPHIA - Six different players scored on Saturday night in Hershey in a 6-2 victory for the Phantoms over the Hershey Bears. It was the fifth straight win for Philadelphia, equaling a season-high for consecutive victories.

For the sixth game in a row, the Phantoms scored the first goal. At 13:46 of the first period, Jim Campbell carried a puck down the right side and swept behind the net before throwing the disc out in front. It hit a Hershey player and bounced in for the 1-0 Philadelphia lead.

Less than two minutes later, Randy Jones made it a 2-0 lead with his first goal of the season. He let fly a wrist shot from the center point that eluded Hershey goaltender Frederic Cassivi at the 15:35 mark.

Hershey pulled even by scoring the game's next two goals. The first came with just 15 seconds left in the first period when Kris Beech deflected a centering pass past Phantoms goaltender Martin Houle for a power play tally and a 2-1 game at the first intermission. Then, just past the halfway mark of the second period, Boyd Gordon backhanded a puck from a bad angle that found its way into the net for a 2-2 tie.

But the Phantoms began to pull away at 15:30 of the second period. While on the power play, Matt Ellison collected a puck in the left circle and wristed a bullet past Cassivi to make the score 3-2 at the second break.

Just under four minutes into the third, Philadelphia regained the two-goal advantage when Riley Cote contributed a rare goal. Brent Kelly pulled a puck off the right wall and threw it into the slot, where Cote picked it up and snapped home his third of the season for a 4-2 lead. The advantage was cultivated to 5-2 at 11:56 of the frame when Alexander Picard fired a puck from the right point that maneuvered through traffic and past Cassivi. Stefan Ruzicka closed out the scoring with a power play goal at 18:01, scoring at the back door off a feed from Ryan Ready.

Houle continued his stellar play with 29 saves on 31 Hershey opportunities. Houle has been between the pipes for all five of Philadelphia's victories in the current streak, which matches a five-game winning streak recorded between Feb. 22 and March 3.