Sunday night, for the second consecutive year, May 1st turned out to be a memorable one for Hershey Bears’ head coach Troy Mann. Last year, his charges stormed out to an early 3-0 lead and cruised to a 10-4 win over the Worcester Sharks at Giant Center, eliminating the Sharks from the Calder Cup Playoffs with the win. Last night, in the same venue, and although the score was much closer, 2-1, it was the Portland Pirates meeting the same fate, as the Bears moved on to the next round by virtue of their victory.
The Bears controlled the play immediately after the opening faceoff, and fired three early salvos on net, including a point blank chance off the stick of Chris Bourque just a minute and three seconds into the contest, but Pirates’ netminder Mike McKenna made a glittering glove save on the Bourque blast denying the Bears an early lead. The momentum then swung in the Pirates favor over the next ten minutes of play, but Sean Collins gave the Bears a 1-0 lead at 14:19 by converting a pass from behind the net from Liam O’Brien for his first goal of the series and his first in 18 career playoff outings.
“Obviously that (18 game goal drought) was spread over three years, so I’m not really thinking about it that way,” chuckled Collins. “It’s definitely a relief, I’ve been a little snake bitten the last few games. I feel my game has been good, and it’s nice to be rewarded.”
The Bears carried a 1-0 lead into the second period, but the Pirates carried the play in the early stages of the stanza, including a quality scoring chance on a slapshot off the stick of Connor Brickley that resulted from a neutral zone turnover by Hershey rookie Jakub Vrana. But fortunately for the Bears, Brickley’s bid was put aside by their netminder Justin Peters, who preserved their precarious 1-0 lead. In the eighth minute of the frame, the Bears finally put their first shot on McKenna, and at the 8:29 mark, they doubled their lead to 2-1 when defenseman Ryan Stanton slid a shot by McKenna, finishing off an odd-man rush with Ryan Bourque and Vrana. Stanton’s strike, which was the Bears’ 12th, and ultimately last goal of the series, was also the 10th in which a defenseman figured into the scoring.
After the game, Mann was asked whether having the defense so involved in the offense in the series was part of his clubs’ strategy, or just something that developed.
“It’s something we’ve been doing since October 1st really. We play a very aggressive system, and the “D” has got the green light. Obviously, not to be crazy out there, but they’ve got a green light in a lot of situations, and we want our “D” active. We think that is the only way to play now, the way that hockey is so compact in the “D” zone coverage. You’ve got to create offense, and that’s what we try to do which involves the defense. I think the numbers indicate that from our defense over the regular season. When you’ve got guys like Stanton and Lewington, I think Lewington ended up with three or four points, and let’s not forget we have three rookie defensemen in the lineup here, and that’s not easy to do. For those kids to play with composure, they’ve had their moments like every player, but I’m real proud of the “D” corps right now.”
Peters was stellar again in the waning moments of the period, buffering another bid by Brickley, this one on an odd-man rush from the doorstep, giving the Bears a 2-0 lead heading into the second intermission. But early in the third period, the Pirates finally penetrated Peters’ armor when Wayne Simpson redirected a Michael Matheson point shot behind Peters to narrow the Bears’ lead to 2-1 at 2:51 on the visitors’ 19th shot of the game. However, Peters was perfect the rest of the way, finishing off the Pirates by stopping 115 of the 119 shots he faced in his four outings in the series.
The Bears series triumph marked their first under the captaincy of Garrett Mitchell, his first year in the role, but in his fifth full season with Bears. After the win over the Pirates, Mitchell, who scored the club’s first goal in their game-two victory in Portland, talked about his role as captain in the series win.
“We’ve talked all season about winning the week, and during the season, there were numerous times where we were unable to win that week. But for the most part we’ve been able to respond after losing the first game of the week, and that’s kind of how we looked at this series, looking at it like we lost the first game of the week during the regular season. After we won the game up there, we knew all we had to do was win two games at home, and we’ve been a good team at home all season. I didn’t have to do much; we have great guys in our room. Chris Bourque has three Calder Cups, (assistant coach) Bryan Helmer has a couple, and Manner has been around for a Cup as well. It’s an exciting time of the year, and you don’t have to do much to motivate them at this time of the year.”
….Especially when the Bears’ opponents in round two is one whom they faced a dozen times in the regular season, are their Keystone State neighbors, and are also arguably their biggest rival, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
Notes:
Vrana led the series in scoring with 5 points (2g, 3a).
Stanton’s goal, which was the Bears’ last of the series, was also the first career game winning post-season goal for the veteran defenseman, who also scored the Bears' first goal of the series in Portland.
With the win, the Bears improved to 8-1 all-time at Giant Center when facing playoff elimination, while Portland fell to 1-8 all-time in winner-take-all games with the loss.
Hershey’s lineup featured five players who were also in the lineup in the Worcester game last May 1, (Chandler Stephenson, O’Brien, Erik Burgdoerfer, Vrana, and Mitchell).
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