Bears Wallop Wolfpack

Buoyed by second period strikes from Zach Sill and Mason Mitchell, and a spectacular 27-save effort in net from Vitek Vanecek, the Hershey Bears bounced the Hartford Wolfpack on Saturday night at XL Center, 4-1 , reaching the .500 mark (9-9-0-2) for the second time this season with the victory.

Mathias Bau started the scoring for the Bears, beating Wolfpack starting netminder Chris Nell with a long range wrist shot at 3:18 of the first period. Hampus Gustafsson picked up the primary assist on the Bau goal, his first helper of the season, and defenseman Hubert Labrie picked up the secondary assist.

Riley Barber gave the visitors a 2-0 lead with 1:33 left in the stanza, potting his 5th of the season with assists going to Lucas Johansen and Dustin Gazley.

Sill struck with the Bears in shorthanded mode 7:08 in the second, with Labrie registering the lone helper. Sill’s strike was the 50th of his AHL career.

Mitchell managed his first red light of the season at 15:04 of the session, streaking down the left wing and launching a laser of a shot that eluded Nell, and ended his night as well.

Vanecek, who surrendered four goals on only twelve shots in his season debut on November 12, at Giant Center against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, was stellar all night, making several spectacular stops before Adam Tambellini spoiled his shutout bid with only 2:47 left in regulation time.

Notes- Labrie, who played in his 300th AHL contest in the Bears’ game Wednesday against Springfield, and skated in his 90th as a Bear in this encounter, posted his first multi-point effort in a Hershey uniform with his two assist effort...Sill’s shorty was the Bears’ third of the season, third struck on the road, and the clubs’ first since October 27…Barber’s GWG was his first of the season...The Bears were 0-for-3 on the power play, yet won for the first time on the road this season when not registering an extra strength tally.  

Bruins Best Bears to Split Weekend Series

The Providence Bruins stopped the Hershey Bears’ three game road winning streak on Sunday afternoon at Dunkin’ Donuts Center, prevailing by a 4-1 margin.

Liam O’Brien, who has managed to stay off the penalty side of the scoresheet (no PIM’s) and find his way on the scoring side since returning from the NHL’s Washington Capitals, netted the Bears’ only goal of the game and his 3rd marker of the season with his club on the power play at 11:23 of the first period.

Hershey netminder Pheonix Copley, who entered the game unbeaten on the season (5-0-0-1), stopped 16 shots in suffering his first setback of the season,. He also contributed to his own demise by turning the puck over in his own crease shortly after the opening faceoff, with his faux pas leading to an easy unassisted goal by Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson at the 1:43 mark of the first period. 

Notes- Hershey defenseman Tyler Lewington served a minor penalty in the game, marking the 14^th game of the 17 that he has played this season he has visited the “sin bin”…Chris Bourque added to his league leading point total by collecting the secondary assist on O’Brien’s goal…Hershey’s one-goal offensive output was the 5^th time this season that they have scored a goal or less in a game (1 shutout). 

Bears Bruise Bruins

The Hershey Bears traveled north on Friday night to battle the Providence Bruins and escaped the Dunkin’ Donuts Center with a 3-1 victory. With the triumph, head coach Troy Mann’s 140^th as the Bears’ bench boss, the Bears moved their record north of the .500 mark for the first time this season (8-7-0-2).

The Bears wasted little time finding the scoreboard, beating Providence netminder Zane McIntyre for the first time only 2:22 into the affair, when Riley Barber, potting his 4th goal of the season, struck on the power play. Liam O’Brien and Chris Bourque, the former P-Bruin, assisted on the strike.

Barber was back on the scoresheet a few minutes later, collecting the secondary assist on Mathias Bau’s 4^th goal at 5:57, giving the Bears a 2-0 lead. Tyler Graovac, in his 2^nd game with the Bears on a long term conditioning assignment picked up the primary assist on the goal.

A little over halfway through the 2^nd period, Bau was back in the goal scoring column again. Benefiting from an outstanding individual effort by Anthony Peluso, who controlled the puck along the boards, before dishing a pretty pass to Bau, who then cruised down the slot unimpeded before ripping a wrist shot by McIntyre at 12:19. Mason Mitchell picked up the secondary assist on the goal, collecting his first professional point.

The Bears and their capable keeper Pheonix Copley, carried a 3-0 shutout lead into the third period, but for the 16^th time in 17 games, they allowed a goal in the final frame, this one to Justin Hickman.

However, Hickman’s goal was the only one that Copley would allow, as the North Pole, Alaska native finished the night with 31 saves, raising his record on the season to 5-0-0-1.

Tyler Graovac’s empty-net goal at 19:54, the Bears’ third empty-netter of the season, assisted by Dustin Gazley and Bau, finished out the scoring. 

Bears Comeback Crack's Crunch

The Hershey captured their first victory when trailing entering the third period last night at Giant Center against the Syracuse Crunch, and in the process improved their record (7-7-0-2) to the .500 mark for the second time this season.

Jeremy Langlois started the comeback just 27 seconds into the third, gathering in the puck at the right point before coasting down to the top of the faceoff circle and launching a slapshot that caromed by Crunch keeper Connor Ingram. Langlois' lamp lighting was his second of the season, and the 40th of his AHL career.

Chris Bourque, cruising down the left wing, collected a precise cross-ice pass from Wayne Simpson, and then launched a wicked wrister by Ingram to give the Bears their first lead of the event at 4:05. Bourque's goal was the 250th of his pro career, his 185th as a Bear, and the 225th of his AHL career. 

The Crunch tied the game less than three minutes later on a goal by Alexander Volkov, but another goal by Bourque, once again assisted by Simpson, gave the Bears a lead they would not relinquish at 12:55. 

Lucas Johansen added an unassisted, empty-net goal at 19:51, giving the Bears the final margin of victory at 4-2. 

Notes: The win was the first of the season attained by the Bears when they failed to scored on the power play...The Bears have scored two empty-net goals in their last four games...Pheonix Copley captured the win in net for the Bears, stopping 20 shots to improve his season record to 4-0-0-1...Copley has allowed a total six goals against in his last 4 outings, after allowing six, all in the same period, in his first appearance of the season in Rochester.

Bears Struggling to Succeed 

Thus far the Hershey Bears’ 2017-18 season can be summed up in three words, surging and struggling.

Training camp injuries to both last season’s number one and number two goalies, Pheonix Copley and Vitek Vanecek, both unforeseen when camp started, meant that bench boss Troy Mann’s charges, already thin in the defensive area, would be stretched even further without the services of that talented tandem for a few weeks.

“Everybody knows that Copley had a pretty significant injury in game four of the Providence series (an injury that shelved him for the remainder of the playoffs), but he came into training camp and everything was great, but unfortunately at the end of camp he tweaked that same injury. They wanted to make sure they got it right, there was no surgery involved in the summer, but we had to be very patient in order to get him back to 100%. As for Vitek, it was just a tough luck kind of injury. He pulled his hamstring in the first preseason game in Jersey and once I got back to Hershey, Dr. Black pretty much said hamstring injuries are a minimum of six weeks, and sure enough it was just over six weeks before he was healthy enough for us to send him down to South Carolina to get a couple of rehab starts in.”

With Parker Milner and rookie Adam Carlson trusted to “tend the twine”, backed up by the relatively inexperienced blueline bunch, the Bears struggled from the start, beginning with a sizable 7-2 road setback at the hands of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, an encounter in which goaltender Milner was victimized for six goals. That was followed up by a pair of home ice losses, one in regulation and one in a shootout to the Phantoms, and just like that the Bears found themselves without a win in three ties to open their historic 80^th American Hockey League campaign.   

“First and foremost, I don’t know how many AHL or NHL teams for that matter could survive without their number one or number two goalies, so that certainly played a major factor.  We were hoping to have Copley and Vanecek to start the season, knowing that we were going in with three rookies on the blueline, and actually that turned into four when Madison Bowey only lasted one game (before being called up to the Washington Capitals due to an injury on the Caps’ defense) . That all combined to play a part in It”, said Mann, whose club was winless in their first four outings of the season.

Mann continued, “Adam Carlson was certainly a pleasant surprise in terms of the couple of starts that he got, but there were some inconsistencies in Parker Milner’s game, mixed that with seven or eight rookies on the roster, specifically on the back end, and we knew there were going to be some growing pains.”

Like many other AHL coaches, Mann has lamented over the years about the abundance of games his club has against division rivals, but he had to be happy when we peered closely into the Bears’ schedule when it was released this past summer. Sure, it was still dotted with frequent appearances against Keystone State neighbors the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and Lehigh Valley Phantoms, but it also featured a three game early season Midwest road swing to Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, and Rockford, and the freedom of the road, although it only paid off with one win, in Grand Rapids, Mann says his club benefited in tangible ways from the experience.

“It was a very difficult road trip as it was basically three games in two and a half days with time changes and some tough travel. But we were able to get in there two days early, with the big amount of rookies on the team, and do some team bonding and get in some practices. I think that any time that you are able to do those things as a team, especially when you have a lot of new guys, it’s important. I still think that even though we only won one game on the trip, I think that trip played a big part in getting our guys together.”

After returning home from the Midwest trip, the Bears suffered another tough setback, on the road against the baby Pens. But, that was followed up by a pair of home ice wins, and the Bears’ fortunes appeared to be changing with the back-to-back wins, and the prospect of Copley returning to action in the next game, a road outing against the Rochester Americans.

In Rochester, the Bears bolted out to 3-0 lead, and Copley, who was perfect in the first period in his return to action, but in the middle stanza, he succumbed to six goals in a 19-shot barrage, and that left Mann with a bit of a dilemma.

“Anytime you have multiple pucks going in in one period, whether it’s to change the momentum or because of indifferent play it (pulling the goalie) always goes through your mind.  But he had missed some significant time, and hadn’t played a game in about five weeks, and I thought it was important that he fight through it, and he did (allowing no goals in the remainder of regulation and overtime).  I didn’t want to pull him and then have him travel five hours back to Hershey and start the next night.  My message to the team after the second period was that we could win the game 7-6, I just felt it was one of these games, and we were able to get two goals in the third before losing the shootout, which is pretty much a crapshoot.”

Mann added, “We also had a three-in-three that weekend, and we had a plan in place to get him in two games, and if not, we were actually going to play him one, and give Carlson and Vitek one as well.” 

Copley has followed up the rocky Rochester outing with three straight wins, allowing only a total four goals in the process.

Vanecek, on the other hand, had an easy night in his AHL season debut on November 12 against the baby Pens at Giant Center, easy at least in the fact that he only faced a total of twelve shots. But the rust in his armor from the injury showed, as he managed only eight saves in suffering a defeat that saw the Bears score just one goal in support of him.

The Bears offense is best characterized by the “surging and struggling” saying. Nearly half of the clubs 40 non-shootout goals this season (18, or 45%), have been scored on the power play, and when that extra man unit is surging and they strike at least once on the power play, they are 6-3-0-2 and score an average of 3.36 goals per game, but when they fail to strike with the extra man, they have yet to a win a game, going 0-4, and scoring only a total of four goals in those contests.

“It’s absolutely a concern”, said Mann, in response to whether his team’s reliance on the power play is worrisome. “Our skill set this year is certainly not as deep as in years past, especially when you compare it to two years ago when an influx of rookies came in like (Travis) Boyd and (Riley) Barber and those types of players turned pro. We’ve talked about it, and obviously we’d like to generate some more five-on-five goals, as it forces your special teams have to be good on a night-to-night basis, unlike last year when we could get by on nights when the power play wasn’t on.”

“If you look at the league numbers, we are in the top ten on both special teams units, and I think for us to continue to have success that’s going to have to continue. Last year I think we finished second in scoring in general, and that was also the case the year before, but I just don’t see our team, the way it’s currently constructed, I don’t see that continuing this year. Our scoring has been primarily coming from four of five guys, as evidenced by multiple forwards on the team with pretty low numbers, and that’s just the way it is right now, but it’s still early.”