If the first two exhibition games of the season are any indication, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms have a lot of work to do.

The Charlotte Checkers came to town and outscored the Phantoms 13-3 in two games. The losses gave the team a checklist of things to work on in the week of practices leading up to the season opener Saturday night at home against Hershey.

After an 8-1 pounding on Friday night, Lehigh Valley looked better – at least at times – on Saturday, but were downed 5-2. Coach Scott Gordon identified cutting down on penalties and fine-tuning some defense as the priority leading up to the game against Hershey.

“We got into penalty trouble in the first period, so that slowed us down a little bit, but we got better toward the end of it,” said Gordon. “We didn’t give up a lot of chances five-on-five, like the other night when we gave up a ton. Defensively, there were some holes at times, but it was a lot cleaner and as a result, we had more opportunities offensively.

“The penalties are an issue, but I thought that our penalty killing was a lot more of what it’s supposed to look like, and the breakdowns that we had tonight were more from inexperience than anything else.”

With a number of rookies joining the roster, much of training camp has been working on just getting everybody used to playing with new guys next to them on the ice. That’s going to continue as Gordon gets a final roster after all of the preseason player moves are done and he knows exactly who he’s got to work with.

The toughest part of getting acclimated may be on the defensive side, where Phil Myers and Mark Friedman look for playing time with Lehigh Valley. Both are talented young prospects who are learning on the fly how to play along veteran defenseman like T.J. Brennan and Mark Alt.

“We have on our team two rookies on defense, and probably five highly-skilled defensemen, and with that there’s a lot of risk,” said Gordon. “You usually don’t have that many guys that are going to make high-risk plays and especially with the younger guys, they have to learn that there’s a time and place to come from probably being the best defenseman on their team, so there’s going to be some growing pains with that.

“On top of that, we don’t want our veteran defensive guys to tone it down because we’ve got to live with the mistakes of our younger guys. The guys that we have that are the offensive guys, there’s got to be a recognition that there’s a time and place, and too many times we took chances.”

In the early going, the line of Greg Carey, Mikhail Vorobyev and Corban Knight has performed well, with Vorobyev picking up an assist on Friday and Carey adding a goal on Saturday.

“We generated some offense out there, but we want more,” admitted Carey. “We want some pucks to go in the back of the net and some harder plays. We want to be a hard team to play against. We’ll see what the lines are going forward. Everyone on the team is a good hockey player, and it doesn’t really matter who he puts together out there, we can all produce.”

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN ... Forwards Alex Kruselnyski, Chris McCarthy and Matt Willows, along with defensemen James de Haas, Frank Hora and Nolan Zajac and goalies Mark Dekanich and John Muse were loaned to Reading of the ECHL from the Phantoms. In addition, forwards Mike Huntebrinker, Mark Naclerio, Derek Whitmore and defenseman Ryan Segalla were returned to the Reading Royals.

EARLY SCHEDULE ... The Phantoms open at home against Hershey on Saturday before a trip to Hartford for a game on Sunday. The following weekend, it’s a home-and-home series with rival Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on the road Friday and back home Saturday before a trip to Hershey next Sunday. Last season, the Phantoms and Penguins didn’t see much of each other in the early going, with the majority of their games coming late in the season. This year, they meet three times in the first month of the season.

OSKAR, OSKAR, OSKAR ... On Sunday, forward Oskar Lindblom was assigned to the Phantoms from the Flyers. The 21-year-old forward enters his first full professional season after playing in eight games with the Phantoms at the end of the 2015-2016 season and then skating in the Swedish Hockey League last season. The Flyers drafted Lindblom in the fifth round of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft.