Staff photo / Brian Yauger Phantoms forward Evan Jardine fires a shot on net during the second period of Saturday's game.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Phantoms closed the regular season out on a high note and rewrote the record books in the process, clinching the top seed in the Eastern Conference in a 6-1 victory over the US National Team Development Program U17s on Saturday.

“I didn’t do anything, they did it. Despite all of us coaches,” Phantoms coach Ryan Ward said following the game. “It’s a special group, obviously. They’ve been playing playoff hockey, since probably mid-December, when we lost those guys to the World Junior A Challenge. We had to grind some things out, and I think they’ve come together really well. Every game’s been important to them, they’ve treated it as such, and we’ve matured as we’ve went here.

“The locker room’s a special place there with those guys and our leadership. Every single guy that’s here, they play a role. And they’ve done it well. They should be really proud.”

It didn’t take long for the Phantoms to get on the board on Saturday, with forward Peter Cisar finding the back of the net just 42 seconds into the game.

Unfortunately for Youngstown, the initial lead was short-lived, as less than four minutes later, Team USA forward JP Hurlbert beat out Melvin Strahl to knot the game at 1.

Hurlbert’s goal was the last time someone wearing the red, white, and blue found the back of the net.

That wouldn’t be the case for the Phantoms, however.

Adam Benak dipped into his bag of tricks in the second period. As the Phantoms upped their pressure in the offensive zone, Benak wrapped around the back of the net, puck on stick, and threw it in the net lacrosse-style. Commonly known as the “Michigan” goal, Benak’s scoop and score put the Phantoms up 2-1.

Ryan Rucinski needed just one point to cross the 40-point threshold. A textbook back-and-forth with captain Coleson Hanrahan set Rucinski up for a one-timer to reach that mark. Less than a minute later, Rucinski found the back of the net again, and six minutes into the third period, Rucinski won the net-front scrum and forced the puck in for his third.

Fans hesitantly tossed hats onto the ice, unsure if Rucinski had scored, but the Ohio native got the puck in, and earned his first regular season hat trick.

Luke Osburn’s third-period goal, his 18th in Youngstown, put him in the Phantoms’ record books as the club’s all-time leading goal scorer as a defenseman, surpassing now-New York Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield. The blueliner also assisted on Benak’s goal and Rucinski’s second goal, finishing the night with three points.

When the puck crossed the goal line, the excitement for Osburn amongst the team was apparent.

“Obviously, it’s an awesome feeling, but one thing’s for sure, I couldn’t do it without the guys around me,” Osburn said. “I love every one of those guys and they mean a lot to me.

“I think we had (the milestone) in our head a little bit, and I was just shooting the thing, and one of them went in.”

With the airtight Eastern Conference race leaving little room for error, the Phantoms didn’t get the opportunity to rest their top guys like a lot of playoff teams get to down the stretch. Two wins, two days, top seed. It was that simple.

The Phantoms outscored Team USA by a combined 13-4 over the weekend home-and-home, after starting Friday’s game down 2-0.

“We actually started really slow last night, like bad, but the thing about this group is they don’t panic. They’re very steady on the rudder,” Ward said. “We got down 2-0 early and that just shows the leadership we have on the bench. It’s not me talking, it’s them. You look at (Osburn) and (Coleson Hanrahan) and (Conner de Haro) on the bench and even the guys that don’t wear letters, and they’re all like ‘Hey, we’re good.’

“To me, as a coach, we’re at the point of the season where what I say doesn’t matter. They hold each other accountable and my job’s to prepare them. They play the game and I think that’s the best part. When you have the locker room that we have and the leadership that we have, I think it comes easy. They knew the stakes, they’ve known the stakes for the last month and for them to understand it, and not take it for granted, that’s a pretty special thing.”

The Phantoms finish the regular season with a 42-18-0-2 mark and 86 points in the standings. Both of those are club records, with 42 wins standing as the new high, and 86 points ties the mark set by the 2014-15 team.

Now Youngstown plays the waiting game to see who they’ll face in the postseason. The Phantoms will receive a first-round bye and will play the winner of No. 4 Muskegon and No. 5 Cedar Rapids in the second round.