“We're just finding ways to lose games right now, rather than early in the season, we were finding ways to win games.” - John Snowden
The Lehigh Valley Phantoms were a great team in the first two months of the season. The youth movement and ideal mix of veterans made them one of the best American Hockey League teams and a potential Calder Cup-caliber group. The Phantoms have been a mess since. Their 28-31-3-3 record is the second-worst in the Atlantic Division and will leave them out of the playoffs unless they turn things around.
This collapse doesn’t just happen overnight; instead, the losses piled up, and this team slowly fell in the standings. Looking back on the season, there were a few losses that stood out and defined the disappointing collapse.
Dec. 19: 5-1 vs Bridgeport Islanders
This was the first game the Phantoms played following the Denver Barkey call-up. The Philadelphia Flyers called up their top prospect three hours before the puck drop, and when the team took the ice, it was clear they weren’t the same team. Aside from losing a skilled player, they never replaced the motor and the compete that Barkey provided on every shift.
The offense particularly looked hapless, scoring only one goal against the Bridgeport Islanders as part of a stretch where they scored only nine goals in six games. Paired with the undisciplined play and the penalties that set them back in the game, the Phantoms looked like a mess for the first time all season, a sign of things to come. “When it gets a little stressful, we just kind of make it up, and you can't make it up in this league. You can't make it up at the next level. You definitely can't make it up at the next level,” head coach John Snowden noted after the game.
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The Phantoms would win their next game with a 2-1 shootout victory over the Hartford Wolf Pack. However, the Islanders loss was the first where they didn’t look like a good team and started to look like one that would fall apart, which they did in the coming weeks.
Jan. 23: 8-5 vs Charlotte Checkers
The Charlotte Checkers have a history of running up the score on teams with a high-pressure and high-volume style that, when executed well, is tough to defend. They trounced the Phantoms with four quick goals in the first period and pulled away to an 8-5 victory. “Turnovers and unforced errors that essentially are self-inflicted and just ended up in our net early,” Snowden mentioned afterwards.
This game was a low point in January as an exclamation point on a five-game losing streak. The Phantoms wound up winning two of their next three games afterward but they were treading water at this point with how they were playing.
Feb. 15: 3-1 vs Syracuse Crunch
In the second game of a back-to-back, the Phantoms once again looked hapless. They lost to the Cleveland Monsters the previous night but against the Syracuse Crunch, the offense never showed up, and it’s why they lost 3-1.
After the game, Snowden was asked if there were any bright spots. His answer was four minutes long, detailing the struggles and the inability to win games. Ironically, he ended his statement with “We just got to get to the place where we're going to do it and stop talking about it,” so even with all the answers and explanations, the Phantoms had to execute, and they couldn’t.
March. 27: 5-3 vs Springfield
Fast forward to the recent weekend, and the Phantoms hosted the Springfield Thunderbirds, a team that was hot on their heels, and they had to defeat them. Since the Thunderbirds hired Steve Ott as their head coach, they’ve looked like a playoff team, and this game would be their chance to prove they are better than the Phantoms.
This was a game the Phantoms couldn’t afford to lose, and they did badly against the Thunderbirds. This was a game where the Phantoms needed to play with urgency, and they didn’t, despite their playoff hopes being on the line. This was the game where the urgency was supposed to kick in, so when it didn’t, many wondered when it would.
“Well, it should kick in already. Like should have been kicked in for the last month and a half now because it's been a battle, and we're in a grind. So, we've got to keep hammering the understanding of where we're at right now. We can control our own fate if we want to. We want to stick to the plan and play the game the right way,” Snowden noted after the game.
March. 29: 5-1 vs Wilkes-Barre Scanton
To wrap up the recent three-in-three, the Phantoms put together their worst performance, certainly one of the worst, of the season. They were awful from the start and looked like a team that had no confidence they would win. The Wilkes- Barre Scranton Penguins are their rivals who have defeated them in each of the past two playoff runs. There’s a good chance they end the Phantoms season early with a win on Sunday and a weekend home-and-home against them.
After the game, Snowden insisted that the team didn’t give up and hadn't thrown the while flag on the season. “We were not checked out at all; we’re battling all the way,” Snowden mentioned in a conversation with The Hockey News, adding, “We’re just going to keep going, it’s what we’re paid to do.” The Phantoms 7-16-1 record since Jan. 30 suggests otherwise.