If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

That could be the motto for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms lately as they continue to get good looks at the goal and fire away shot after shot, but come up short on the scoreboard.Down 3-2 to Hershey last Friday, the Phantoms outshot their rival 27-1 in the final period, leading you to believe that they likely came away with a win, or at least sent the game into overtime.Unfortunately, only one of those 27 shots got past goalie Justin Peters, while the lone shot by the Bears found that sacred ice beyond the goal line for Hershey as the Bears skated off with a 4-3 win.The 27 shots in one period are a league high for the season and tied a franchise home record set back in 2012 when the Phantoms were nestled in New York state as the Adirondack Phantoms. Overall, Lehigh Valley outshot Hershey 45-21 in the game."We're playing good hockey," said Mark Alt of his team's recent performance, which saw them lose four straight. "Obviously, we gave them a few chances that you don't want to; we had our own, too, and capitalized on a few of them."We've got to even the scale here and tighten up in front of our net and then hopefully, we can out-chance them like we did in the third period."The next night, Lehigh Valley still wasn't able to get on a successful offensive roll as Hartford came to town and stretched the Phantoms losing streak to five straight games, picking up a 2-1 win.Goalie Anthony Stolarz was strong in net and is now seventh in the AHL with a 2.31 goals-against average and sixth in save percentage at .920.As luck would have it, the Phantoms wrapped up their three-games in three-days stretch in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This time, the advantage in shots was squarely on Bridgeport's side, but Jason LaBarbera turned away 42 of the 43 shots that he faced and the offense found their stride as Lehigh Valley picked up a 4-1 win.Taylor Leier, Chris Conner, Danick Martel and Kevin Goumas provided the offenseCoach Scott Gordon, who was tabbed to serve as an assistant coach for Team USA in the upcoming World Cup competition, has the right approach."You only have one choice, and that's to keep going, keep trying to fight through it."PHANTOM FACTS:Gordon is looking forward to working with Team USA. "This is my eighth opportunity to be a part of the United States Hockey program and I can tell you I've loved every one of them. I can tell you there's no better feeling that I've had in any other experience with hockey."... Saturday night's game against Hartford drew a record crowd for a Lehigh Valley Phantoms game, with 9,046 fans showing up on Girl Scouts Night, giving the team five straight sellouts. The previous record was set last March when 9,017 fans were on hand to see the Phantoms and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins battle ... Conner has now scored goals in four straight games and has eight on the season. Conner's goal against Bridgeport was on a penalty shot, just the second in Lehigh Valley Phantoms history... Defenseman Jesper Petterson was reassigned to Reading of the ECHL.