The Phantoms wrapped up Thursday morning's practice pretty quickly and hopped on a bus to Rochester, where they'll take on the Americans Friday night and kick-off a five-game road trip.

Story in tomorrow's paper about what they hope to accomplish out of that. It comes at a time that could be considered either a blessing or a curse, I feel. They just had their strongest showing of the season Saturday against Albany, but they're now playing one of the longest stretches of the schedule away from home and they haven't had much luck on the road since moving to Glens Falls.

But one of the main ways you become a playoff team -- and Rob Bordson touches on this in the story you'll read tomorrow -- is winning games away from home. There were 16 teams who made the playoffs last year and only three of them finished with a losing road record. If the Phantoms can take that momentum they generated from the Albany win and harness it on this stretch, it can only help.

Another thing thing I thought was interesting about this team is the relative disparity between Schenn and Couturier, who have combined for 21 points this season, and the rest of the team. If you add up the point totals of Adirondack's next six top point producers, you match Couturier and Schenn's combined totals. Fifteen skaters have two or fewer points. All things Phantoms coach Terry Murray addresses in the story that runs tomorrow, so be sure to check it out over at www.saratogian.com.

One last thing I wanted to mention: the Phantoms practiced shootouts at today's practice and the rules were if you scored, you kept going. A little different from the Spa Tan Boy competition we saw Monday morning, but still entertaining. Your co-winners? Harry Zolnierczyk and Zack FitzGerald.

FitzGerald, at right, again celebrated by riding his stick across the ice, which is becoming his go to, but he actually looked really good out there. They were practicing four-on-four rushes and he was going hard to the net on all of them, getting to the spot that Murray had drawn up on the board. And it looks like FitzGerald and the rest of the defensemen and goalies celebrated with some ice cream at the forwards' expense for coming out on top of the three-on-two battles at Tuesday's practice.

I'll be in Massena (practically Canada) tomorrow covering high school football, so I won't have a post up here until well after Adirondack's game at Rochester ends. But I'll be there Saturday in Albany.

Until next time,
MC