Focused the print story on just how productive Adirondack's secondary scoring has been lately -- they have six of the team's past 12 goals -- but first a quick update on Albany forward Mattias Tedenby.

He was taken to an area hospital after a skate cut his face with 12:13 left in the third period.

"I just watched it," Phantoms coach Terry Murray said. "It was the defenseman. He kind of lost his balance and as Tedenby went to the net he was leaned over. He lost his balance and his back leg kicked up, caught him. It's nerve-wracking, those kinds of cuts. I've seen them before. It's not good."

The good news is the cut was not to Tedenby's neck, in which case things could have been much worse than they were, but it was still a very tough sight to see. The winger tried to skate off the ice and an official pointed to the ice, telling him to stay down. Tedenby eventually left with a trainer.

Albany beat writer Pete Dougherty will have more, so I'll be sure to link his story when it's online.

As far as Adirondack is concerned, Murray was really happy with the team's start. They stuck with it after Albany twice tied the score with a pair of goals that could have been demoralizing. The first one was a shorthanded goal, the second came after the Phantoms were caught a bad line change.

"We kept pushing and that's the most important thing -- that you respond," Murray said. "Just keep playing. You end up getting another goal and it was a little bit of a back-and-forth there."

The second period, however, was all Devils. Murray was not at all happy about that.

"We had a tough time getting out of our end," Murray said. "We turned too many pucks over. They were changing on the fly, keeping fresh people coming at us. It was pretty hectic for us."

Murray said Adirondack was lucky to escape that period with a lead, but was happy with the way the team responded in the final 20 minutes. He credited the team's leaders with righting the ship.

"We get into the second period and tried to get a little too cute and tried to build on (the 3-2 lead) the wrong way," Murray said. "You want to play the game hard, you want to play it the right way all the time. When you get into those toe-drags in your own zone, trying to clear the zone -- not getting pucks deep at the red line -- they're going to come back at you real hard."

As important as that veteran pep talk was, some of the team's best players were its rookies.

Marcel Noebels, Matt Mangene and Andrew Johnston -- a line that was formed at Thursday's practice -- scored Adirondack's first goal and set up its second, a power-play drive from Brandon Manning. Murray said he liked what he saw from that line and intends to keep it together for the time being.

“I think they were our best line tonight. … I think it’s kind of contagious,” Manning said. “I think if your top-line guys start seeing that, then everyone else is going to want to contribute. It’s kind of something we’ve been working on – our secondary scoring – and finally it’s paying off for us.”

More before the Worcester game tomorrow.
 -- MC