Rats-Phantoms: The rivalry begins

It's only a matter of hours before the Adirondack Phantoms and Albany River Rats square off before what is expected to be a standing-room-only crowd at the Glens Falls Civic Center in the first of 12 regular-season meetings between the geographic AHL rivals separated by (roughly) 54.3 miles of the Adirondack Northway.

The Rats have beaten Portland, Rochester and Norfolk in succession after dropping their season opener to Manchester, all at home. The Phantoms evened their record at 2-2 with a home victory over defending Calder Cup champion Hershey last night.

Albany and Adirondack took turns beating each other on back-to-back nights in the preseason in hard-fought, physical games that are likely to be the norm, given their frequency and location.

"Judging from the preseason games, i think there's going to be all kinds of different hockey being played," Rats rookie center Zach Boychuk said. "There's going to be some toughness, probably a few fights, and there's going to be some skill out there. I'm really looking forward to the game. The fans should be pretty crazy out there. We've heard all the stories from (Albany assistant coach) Geordie (Kinnear) from when he played back in the day. It's going to be interesting, that's for sure."

The Rats and Adirondack Red Wings were among the AHL's fiercest rivals from 1993, when the Capital District Islanders relocated from Troy, and 1999, when the Detroit Red Wings pulled their top farm team from Glens Falls after two decades and four Calder Cup titles.

Glens Falls hasn't had a full-time AHL team since then, though Albany played several regular-season and playoff "home" games the past few years at the Civic Center.

"We're excited," Albany defenseman and alternate captain Bryan Rodney said. "It's a good little hockey town, the Adirondack-Glens Falls area. I know they're going to support their team well, and I'm sure they'll be roaring in warmup. That's the environment a hockey player wants to get in and play in. Hopefully, we'll bring our 'A' game and get off to a good start against this team, because we know we have them, like, 28 times this year. We want to let them know it's going to be a hard-fought game every time against us."

Albany head coach-GM Jeff Daniels hasn't given tonight's game any extra attention throughout the week.

"To be honest, we haven't talked about it much," he said. 'I think it's more for the fans and that kind of thing. I think the games will be intense just because of that. But, we're not going to change our game just because we play them 12 times. We need to keep doing what we've been doing and get better at it. We're not going to try to put on a show just because it's our big rival. We just want to go and play our game."

Tonight is the middle game of the first three-in-three weekend of the season for Adirondack. Both the Phantoms and Rats are on the road on Sunday.

"When you play a team that many times, obviously you're going to learn a lot about them," Adirondack veteran forward and alternate captain Jason Ward said. "It's going to come down to a lot of strategy and stuff like that. It's always nice to have a team close by for travel and things like that, but when you play a team that many times, you're definitely going to have some hatred on both sides."

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Albany will be without three of its veterans in forwards Mike Angelidis and Nicolas Blanchard and defenseman Brett Carson.

Angelidis will miss 3-5 more weeks with a shoulder injury suffered in the season-opening loss to Manchester. Carson broke his left wrist against Portland last Friday and will be out 4-6 weeks.

"We're hoping it's four weeks, but you never know," Daniels said. "He got hit by a pretty big guy and he was far enough away from the boards where he wasn't able to give himself that cushion and went right into the boards. You miss a big horse like Carse who can play a lot of minutes and doesn't seem to drop off, but it's been a group effort in his absence."

Blanchard is wearing the 'A' as alternate captain in Carson's absence, but Blanchard will sit tonight serving a one-game AHL suspension for his hit on Norfolk's Matt Smaby in Wednesday's win. He was given a boarding major on the play and fought Admirals defenseman and East Greenbush native Matt Lashoff after the play.

Smaby did not return to the game. Just prior to the hit, he elbowed Albany forward Steve Goertzen in the head, which went unpenalized and prompted Blanchard to step in. Norfolk coach Darren Rumble submitted a tape of the play to the league, which issued the suspension on Friday as supplemental discipline.

"(Smaby) stepped up on Goertzen and Blanch came over and gave him a shot, like 'That's not going to happen,' " Daniels said. "It was kind of the same situation with Carse where he did get hit and was kind of away from the boards so that when the impact came, he couldn't cushion himself. The puck wasn't there and it was kind of late. (The AHL) obviously wants the guys to play hard, but play within the rules."

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Adirondack will welcome the return of two of its veteran players, defenseman and former River Rat Joey Mormina, and Ward. Both missed games last week for the birth of their children.

It was the first for Mormina and third for Ward, who already has sons Eric, 6, and Nathan, 3. They, their mom and newest brother, Lukas Matthew, remain back in Toronto.

"It was pretty tough leaving for camp and not seeing them," Ward said. "It was nice for coach (Greg Gilbert) to give me some extra days with them, which was really appreciated. To be able to spend time with my older boys and, of course, spend some quality time with the new addition was really beneficial for me. We're just trying to find a place to get everybody down here and try to get back in the old routine."