Sunday, May 8, 2016
Bears Best Pens in Near Perfect Road Win
By:John Sparenberg
Hershey Bears goaltender Justin Peters was flawless on Friday night at Giant Center, stopping all twenty- five shots that he faced from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Even though the pesky Pens eventually found a way to pierce his string of perfection last night as the series shifted north up I-81 to Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza, he was still rock solid, and his teammates picked up the slack by playing a nearly flawless game and taking a 2-1 series lead with a convincing 5-2 win.
In the postseason, the baby Pens have scored in the opening minute of a period four times including the first and second periods of Game 1, and they nearly did it again last night. They provided intense pressure in the opening minutes of the first frame, but Peters was up to the task early, as well as later, in the period when he made a glittering glove save on Jean-Sebastian Dea on the doorstep while the Bears were shorthanded. He also utilized his mitt a little later to snag a low laser from the point by defenseman Tim Erixon.
It looked as though the clubs would enter the first intermission with neither team generating a goal, but with only 80 ticks remaining on the scoreboard clock, Dustin Gazley gave the Bears a 1-0 lead when he backhanded a shot from the doorstep by Penguins netminder Casey DeSmith. Gazely received a nifty backhand pass from Ryan Bourque and a handy helper from defenseman Aaron Ness, who received an assist after keeping the play in the WBS zone with a pinch along the boards.
“We had a great forecheck going on that shift. Ryan Bourque was working hard to get that puck, and Nesser ended up pinching down and then making a pass through two defensemen. I was all alone in front and was in a bad position originally with my back towards the goalie, but I just threw it on net, and I was fortunate to bury it,” said Gazley.
On the heels of his strong outing on Friday night, including the lone assist on the game-winning shorthanded Sean Collins strike, Gazley found himself in the lineup last night for the first time in the postseason, and he rewarded them with another strong effort.
“It’s nice to be in the lineup,” explained Gazley. “It’s tough to sit out and watch hockey games. I’m trying to do everything I can to help the team out and help us get some wins. We are playing as a really good team right now and we have to keep the ball rolling.”
Early in the second period, with the Bears still holding a 1-0 lead, the Penguins seemed poised to tie the game on the power play when they kept the puck in the Bears’ zone for not only the entirety of the full two minutes, but for a few anxious moments after Collins was released from the penalty box. Further adding to the drama that made it even more daunting was the fact that Garrett Mitchell played the majority of that sequence without a stick.
“I gave my stick to (Ryan) Stanton,” said Mitchell, the Bears’ captain. “It was a pretty helpless feeling, and I got the puck there at the end. I was in desperation mode at that point trying to get it out. Thank God I was able to reach out and get my hand on it and kind of break the play up. At that point you just stay tight, and Peters has been there all playoffs for us, and he played great again tonight.”
Former Bears defenseman Steve Oleksy’s slashing sentence at 12:32 started a chain of events that saw the visitors take control of the game.
On the ensuing faceoff after Oleksy entered the sin bin, Chandler Stephenson outdueled veteran centerman Dustin Jeffrey in the faceoff circle, and his clean win back to Chris Bourque resulted in Bourque’s second goal of the post-season. This gave the Bears a 2-0 lead only two seconds into the power play.
That was a big goal,” said Bourque, whose power play strike was the first on the series for the Bears after a dozen unsuccessful attempts and also broke an overall 0-for-17 drought with a manpower advantage. “Obviously, you want to get production on the power play, but it’s about getting momentum and making sure you are not hurting yourself. If you get goals, that’s great to help the team.”
After the Bourque besting of DeSmith, there was a noticeable change in atmosphere in the arena, as the crowd breathed a heavy sigh, and the Bears, sensing the opportunity to pounce upon their stunned opponents, exasperated the patrons and the Pens a little more when Jakub Vrana, left unattended to the stick side of DeSmith, deposited the puck into a wide open net after a beautiful setup by Carter Camper. Carter raced around a WBS defender and the approached the net, drawing in DeSmith before dishing off the biscuit to his rookie teammate Vrana.
The Bears brandished a 3-0 lead entering the third period, and then took a page out of the WBS playbook only 32 ticks into the stanza, getting another goal from Chris Bourque, a marker that broke a string of five games in the postseason where the Bears were unable to register a third period goal.
Less than a minute after Bourque’s tally, WBS defenseman Niclas Andersen, cruising down center avenue from his point position, gave the Penguins a glimmer of hope cutting their deficit to 4-1, but a goal by Liam O’Brien, assisted by Chandler Stephenson, who collected his third helper of the contest, and Mitchell, who picked up the primary assist, essentially took away any momentum the home club had hoped to gather, though they did add a 5-on-3 power play strike to finish out the scoring for the contest.
“Chandler gave it to me low there, and I saw Obi going to net. It’s one of the plays were that is kind of our role to do that” (stem momentum), said Mitchell. “We’ve got four lines that can really play, and the great thing about our team right now is that we can roll all four lines.”
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