The Penguins scored one of their prettiest goals of the young season on Wednesday night. It wasn’t enough to lift them past Lehigh Valley.
Ryan Haggerty finished off an impressive all-backhand give-and-go with Adam Johnson as Wilkes-Barre/Scranton tied things up in the second. But the host Phantoms took the lead back before the end of the period and skated to a 4-2 win in an Atlantic Division matchup in Allentown.
Kyle Criscuolo beat Penguins goalie Casey DeSmith with 1:40 left in the second period then added an empty-netter with 25 seconds to go in the third to give the Phantoms the win.
It was a night that started off with promise for the Penguins (5-5-1-1), who scored just 2:21 into the contest when Jake Lucchini picked up his third goal of the season.
After doing a nice job to win a battle on the boards, Lucchini fired what seemed like a harmless shot from the right dot that got through Phantoms goalie Jean-Francois Berube for an unassisted goal.
But the lead lasted less than two minutes thanks to an Andy Welinski score for Lehigh Valley following a fight between Haggerty and Nate Prosser.
Prosser picked up an instigator penalty and a misconduct for dropping the gloves with Haggerty after he laid a big hit on another Phantoms player. But Haggerty was also whistled for boarding on the initial hit, so the teams were at even strength for Welinski’s goal.
Greg Carey made it 2-1 for Lehigh Valley early in the second. The Penguins responded when Haggerty came down the right side on an odd-man rush.
The winger pulled up and spun around for a pass to Johnson that was behind him. Johnson wasn’t able to get off a shot in the slot but with a little improv work, he was able to give his own backhand pass back over to Haggerty, who was able to roof another backhander for the goal.
Joseph Blandisi got the rush started to pick up his first AHL assist of the season.
DeSmith stopped 27 of 30 shots he faced for the Penguins while Phantoms counterpart Berube made 22 saves on 24 shots.
The Penguins are back on the ice Friday night in Utica for a 7 p.m. faceoff against the Comets.