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ALLENTOWN, PA – Several times throughout the season when the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins had a slow start, goaltender Matt Murray was there to bail them out.

But when the Penguins had a slow 40 minutes like they did on Saturday against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, there was little Murray or anyone else could do to save the day.

The Phantoms scored three times in the first two periods while the Penguins couldn’t come up with an answer to fall 4-1. With a win by Hershey on Monday, the Penguins fell six points behind for first place in the East Division and maintain a two-point lead for fourth place in the conference over Hartford and Providence.

For a team that’s out of the playoff race, the Phantoms dominated the Penguins for much of the night.

“There are no games now where nothing matters. The teams that are out of the playoffs are proud organizations and they want to see their teams win and play hard,” head coach John Hynes said. “Our preparation for tonight’s game wasn’t going to result in a win no matter who we played.”

In the first period, the Phantoms did what no other team could do for weeks – score twice on Murray.

With the benefit of a screen in front by the 6-foot-4 Zack Stortini, Lehigh Valley’s Scott Laughton placed a wrister over Murray’s shoulder during a power play to make it 1-0.

The Phantoms beat Murray again a minute later – this time he was partially screened by his own player when Nick D’Agostino skated across the crease as Jesper Pettersson blasted a shot from above the right faceoff circle.

After a quiet start to the second period during which the Penguins didn’t manage their first shot until 15 minutes in, the Phantoms beat Murray for a third time.

This time there wasn’t a screen when Murray couldn’t get his pads closed quick enough to stop a Scott Delisle point shot.

The Phantoms outshot the Penguins 10-3 in the period and appeared in control heading into the third.

“It was a little bit more than a slow start, I would classify it as the first two periods,” Hynes said. “The second was a carryover from the first.”

Still, the Penguins remained patient and appeared poised to chip away at the lead when Andrew Ebbett poked in a backhand pass in front from Tom Kostopoulos to make it 3-1 at the midway point.

The Penguins appeared poised to pull within one when they went on the power play with less than seven minutes remaining. During the man advantage, Bryan Rust lined up a wrister that was blocked by defenseman Robert Hagg and Carter Rowney hit a post, but nothing went in the net.

Hynes said Rust’s blocked shot hurt the Penguins chances for a comeback.

“We could have won the game in the third,” he said. “(Rust’s shot being blocked) was probably the difference-maker in the game.”

With a minute left, Laughton buried an empty net goal to ice the Penguins.

NOTES

– D Reid McNeill (injury), F Jean Sebastien Dea, C Nick Drazenovic (injury), RW Josh Archibald, LW Anton Zlobin (injury), D Barry Goers (injury) and LW Conor Sheary (injury) were scratched for the Penguins.

– Saturday’s attendance was 9,017, a record crowd for the PPL Center.