The Youngstown Phantoms needed a break.  Heading into this contest with the Indiana Ice, the Phantoms had dropped four contests in a row, all on the road.  It seemed like an eternity since the Phantoms had a home game (December 4), which incidentally was the last time this team won.  A three-goal second period doomed the home team as Indiana collected an even-strength, a powerplay, and a shorthanded goal over the last seven minutes of the frame to post a 7-2 win Tuesday.

Indiana scored at the 13:36 mark when Blake Coleman fired a shot that hit the post and apparently went in.  Coleman’s goal was a powerplay score and he was assisted by Brian Ferlin and Danlil Tarasov. For Coleman, it was the 11th goal of the season.

The Phantoms wasted little time knotting the contest at the 14:39 mark of the opening period.  Dylan Margonari connected for his third goal of the year, an even-strength chance.  Mike Ambrosia picked up an assist on the Phantoms game-tying score.  The first period would come to a close in a 1-1 deadlock.  The Phantoms and Ice were playing very physical hockey and there was no shortage of hits or near fights throughout the game.

Youngstown would grab a 2-1 lead early in the second period when Ryan Belonger stayed hot and scored for the fourth time in the last ten games.  Ambrosia picked up his second assist of the night and sixth of the year.

The roof then caved in on the Phantoms.  Indiana scored three second period goals in the last seven minutes of the stanza to take a 4-2 lead into intermission.  Adam Erne connected for an even-strength goal with an assist from Peter Schneider to tie the game.  Sean Kuraly then broke loose for the Ice to net a shorthanded goal.  Kuraly gathered a loose puck near center ice and raced toward the net beating Matt O’Connor for the go ahead goal.  Tarasov put an exclamation point on the strong period connecting on another powerplay, this time Ferlin got the assist to put the Ice in front 4-2 after two periods.

At the 18:32 mark of the final period, Indiana tacked on another goal to increase the lead to 5-2. Jarrod Rabey picked up the third powerplay goal of the night for the Ice.  Just over a minute later, Coleman got his second of the game, an even-strength tally, and the rout was on.  Chris Martin (not from Coldplay) tacked on a late goal to wrap the scoring up at 7-2 in favor of the Ice.

With the loss, the Phantoms fell to 9-15-1.  Indiana improved to 12-10-2 with the victory.  The Ice outshot Youngstown, 30-25.   Youngstown welcomes Des Moines for a rare Wednesday night game at the Covelli Centre.

“We have to come ready to play 60 minutes.  It seems like something goes wrong that we do not recover well, and we need to”, said Curtis Carr after the game.  “We compete with the best teams in the league and what happened here tonight does not reflect what kind of team we have.”