Last week, Andrew Joudrey took some lighthearted kidding from teammates who got on him for not winning enough faceoffs.

Perhaps the Hershey centerman was thinking of the ribbing he took when he won two huge faceoffs in the final minutes Friday night at the Giant Center.

Those faceoff wins and subsequent clearing of the puck out of the Hershey zone enabled the Bears to hold on to a 1-0 lead and finish a sweep of the Philadelphia Phantoms in the first round of the Calder Cup playoffs.

Hershey goalie Michal Neuvirth stopped all 23 shots he faced — including a penalty shot — and Graham Mink scored the game's lone goal to advance the Bears to the Calder Cup playoffs' second round, where they will meet the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, beginning Saturday, May 2 in Hershey.

The Phantoms were given a power play after a tripping call against Hershey's Keith Aucoin with 2:13 remaining in the one-goal game. Thirty seconds into the power play, the Phantoms pulled goalie Jean-Sebastien Aubin for an extra attacker, giving Philadelphia a 6-on-4 skater advantage.

Neuvirth made a save on a goalmouth scramble with 50 seconds to go. After that, Joudrey won those two big faceoffs, cutting short any further Philadelphia scoring chances.

"It's kind of a circus out there," Joudrey said of the final minutes. "Our guys sacrificed their bodies and Neuvy made some great saves."

Killing off that final power play put an exclamation point on the Bears' penalty kill for the series. In the four games, they did not allow a power-play goal in 22 Philadelphia chances.

Conversely, the Bears may have made the game's final minutes much more comfortable had they converted on more than just one power play. The Phantoms, taking a page from Hershey's book, killed off nine of 10 Hershey power plays.

But they couldn't stop Mink early in the second period. Stationed to Aubin's right, Mink took a pass from Alexandre Giroux and scored his first goal of the playoffs.

"I just tried to hit it hard on net and luckily it went up and over the goalie," Mink said.

Philadelphia's Jonathan Matsumoto had a golden chance to tie the game at 1-1 when he was hauled down from behind on a breakaway by Hershey's Chris Bourque.

But Neuvirth got a pad on Matsumoto's penalty shot, steering it away.

"I was guessing he was going 5-hole," said the rookie goaltender, who picked up his fourth win of the playoffs. "I was wrong but I stopped it anyway."

Neuvirth was solid throughout and was called on to be at the top of his game during those final few frantic minutes.

"Those were the longest two minutes of my season," he said. "I was just trying to stay focused and the guys did a great job of blocking shots in front of me."

With the loss, the Philadelphia Phantoms will cease to exist. The Flyers, who owned and operated the franchise since 1996, sold it in anticipation of the Spectrum's demolition. The franchise is expected to play next season in Glens Falls, N.Y. There is speculation that the team will eventually settle in Allentown.

For now, though, one of Hershey's biggest rivals over the last decade, goes the way of the Providence Reds, Cornwall Aces and Baltimore Skipjacks.

Notes: The next round's schedule: Saturday, May 2 (7 p.m.) and Sunday, May 3 (5 p.m.) in Hershey; Wednesday, May 6 (7:05 p.m.), Friday, May 8 (7:05 p.m.) and Saturday, May 9 (7:05 p.m., if nec,) in Wilkes-Barre; Sunday, May 10 (5 p.m., if. nec.) and Tuesday, May 12 (7 p.m., if nec.) in Hershey.

E-mail: kfreeman@lnpnews.com