Phantoms Swerved by Pens, 3-1

Split of Home-and-Home Series

March 15, 2026

Allentown, PA – Phil Tomasino (10th) scored against his former team to give the Lehigh Valley Phantoms the initial lead, but the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins rallied from behind to post a 3-1 victory at PPL Center on Sunday evening, thus earning a split in the home-and-home series. The visiting team won in each half of the two-game set beginning with Lehigh Valley’s 4-3 overtime win in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday.

Ultimately, penalty trouble proved costly to the Phantoms as Gabe Klassen (14th) scored a power-play goal early in the third period to break a 1-1 tie. The Penguins benefitted from six power play opportunities while the Phantoms had just one. 24 hours earlier, the Phantoms triumphed in northeast Pennsylvania with a bevy of man-advantage markers and seven total power plays.

“I liked our start,” Phantoms head coach John Snowden said. “I thought the second period, they took control of the game for a little while, and we chased the period. Third period, I thought we pressed, and it was kind of back and forth for a little while. At the end of the day, we took six penalties. They had one. It’s a back end of a three-and-three, and just can’t take that many penalties. You can’t ask these guys to kill those amount of penalties when we’re obviously short on energy, and it’s really hard to do. So I think that was a problem tonight.”

Lehigh Valley (26-27-6) took an initial lead with Tomasino burying a rebound from the right circle for his fifth with the Phantoms and 10th overall this season. Tomasino arrived from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton via a trade for Egor Zamula on December 31.

Oliver Bonk backpedaled along the blue line from center point over to the left while locating a rotating Helge Grans up the wing. Grans offered a pair of sharp-angle shots at Penguins’ netminder Sergei Murashov who fought them off but Tomasino was there on the other side to bury the third chance and get the Phantoms on the board.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (37-15-8) got the equalizer just past the midway mark of the game with Aidan McDonough connecting on the rush and in transition with speedy Rutger McGroaty who knocked through a chip at the net-front past Aleksei Kolosov to get the Penguins on the board.

A double-minor for high sticking on Tomasino at the end of the second period proved costly as Gabe Klassen rifled a shot from the right boards that squeaked through Kolosov to give the Penguins a 2-1 lead.

Lehigh Valley had some of its best chances for a tying tally late in the third period with Zayde Wisdom and Tucker Robertson were buzzing on the penalty kill creating some strong opportunities at Murashov.

Lehigh Valley tried to find the late dramatic magic again but this time would not find the tying tally at 6-on-5.

“I mean,we worked hard, came up short, but, I mean, we can’t be satisfied with our effort,” Oliver bonk said. “Because we lost. But, I mean, we battled hard this weekend, got four points, and that’s something to be happy about. But not satisfied about today.”

Lane Pederson’s big one-timer from the top of the left circle just missed past the glove of the lefty-style netminder Murashov on what could been another exciting tying goal for Lehigh Valley’s leading scorer. But the missed shot eventually popped over to defenseman Owen Pickering whose lengthy clear happened to find the empty net with 43 seconds remaining to cap the contest.

Wilkes-Barre/Scranton ended a five-game winless skid and improved to 7-0-2 against the Phantoms. The two teams have three games remaining in the season series including a Sunday, March 29 rematch in northeast Pennsylvania.

Lehigh Valley’s Magic Number to punch its ticket for the Calder Cup Playoffs remains at 25 points with 13 games remaining in the regular season.

Next up for the Phantoms is a Wednesday night showdown against the first-place Providence Bruins at PPL Center.

The Phantoms travel to Charlotte, NC next week for a two-game series against the Checkers on Saturday at 4:00 p.m. and Sunday at 1:00 p.m.

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