Power play prowess sends Sound Tigers by Bears in double overtime

By: John Sparenberg
jsheynow@gmail.com

Entering the opening game of their Calder Cup Playoffs series against the Bridgeport Sounds Tigers at Webster Bank Arena last night, you could say that the deck was slightly stacked in the favor of the Tigers.

With Riley Barber and Garrett Pilon returning to the lineup, Liam O'Brien sitting out the final game of his suspension, and the late call-up to the Washington Capitals, head coach Hershey head coach Spencer Carbery shuffled the deck and iced the best lineup he could come up with.  This lineup included four players, Chris McCarthy, Joe Snively, Dylan Steman, and Joey Leach on defense, all of whom were not even on the roster a month ago.

When the puck dropped for the opening faceoff, and it became immediately evident that the Bears would be facing long odds and would need to pull out an ace in hole to have any chance of overcoming the odds.  That ace turned out to be Ilya Samsonov, who was making his North American playoff debut in the Bears net.

Samsonov, stellar throughout the night, was spectacular in the first period, stopping every salvo the Sound Tigers launched. Samsonov finished the frame with 15 saves, with several of them being of the spectacular variety, as the teams headed into the second stanza locked in a scoreless tie.

Steve Whitney won a board battle against a much bigger opponent behind the Bridgeport goal line, and then fired a centering pass that was gathered in by McCarthy, who then cruised into the slot undetected before launching a "rocket wrister" by goaltender Christopher Gibson to strike for the first goal of the series.

The Bears made it 2-0 less than five minutes later when Jayson Megna motored by defenseman Sebastian Aho after spotting him a half-zone head start, and then outraced him to a loose puck between the circles before going top shelf on Gibson with the Bears shorthanded.

Unfortunately, the Sound Tigers finally found a way to beat Samsonov before the end of the second period, with Kieffer Bellows potting a rebound while the Sound Tigers were on their fifth power of the night.

Aaron Ness Hershey's power play quarterback, alternate captain, and defensive leader, suffered a scary injury 8:58 into the period after being belted from behind in the goal area by Travis St. Denis. After the impact, Ness slid into the end boards head first, and he did not move on his own the entire time he laid on the ice face down. After a long delay caused by the attending medical crew understandably being extremely cautious in moving Ness, the former Sound Tigers captain was stretchered off the ice and to the hospital for observation.

Both clubs and their coaching staffs watch as
Ness laid on the ice after the hit. 

St. Denis’ penalty was ruled a major penalty, and the Bears then went on what could have been a five minute power play, but, like the Bears' only previous power play, it was interrupted by a Nathan Walker minor penalty. The major resumed after Walker's sentence, but the Bears failed to capitalize on it.

The Bears would then get into penalty trouble late in the game when Tyler Lewington committed an infraction when during the kill, a Bears player lost his stick. Megna guided it back to his teammate, which resulted in a 5-on-3 power play for the home club. Technically what Megna did was illegal, but the teammate was with an arm’s length of him, and normally in a playoff game, things of that nature are either overlooked or a lot of leeway is given, especially with the team involved in the stick shuffling already shorthanded. But that wasn’t the case during this game, and veteran Steve Bernier burned the Bears by tying the goal with his two-man advantage goal at 17:52.

Neither team was able to score in the first overtime, but the fatigue was obvious in the Bears, particularly their defense, which was taxed heavily due to Ness' absence.

In the second overtime, Mike Sgarbossa tripped a Tiger in their defensive zone, giving them their 8th power play of the night, and Bellows was once again able to strike to give the Sound Tigers a 3-2 double overtime win which spoiled Samsonov's stellar 49-save effort.

The Bears finished the game 0-for-3 on the power play, while the Sound Tigers, who were awarded the final four power plays of the game, finished 3-for-8.

Notes- The Bears lineup consisted of a combined 287 games of North American playoff experience, while Sound Tigers' lineup had a combined 349 games, with former Bears, the Bourque brothers, Chris and Ryan, possessing over 50% of that total (180 games).

Megna a center of stability for Bears

By: John Sparenberg
jsheynow@gmail.com

Looking up and down the Hershey Bears' roster from top to bottom as they launch their quest for the Calder Cup, there are a few things that are very evident and jump right out.

The goaltending is rock solid with youngsters Vitek Vanecek and Ilya Samsonov, both of whom were members of 20-win club in the regular season and are surely destined for regular NHL duty in the future.

On the backline are Tyler "Tough as Nails" Lewington, who has grown from being a rough around the edges fringe player into a solid defender who gives opposing players headaches and body aches, and veteran Aaron "Assist Machine" Ness, who collected 50 helpers in the regular season and causes headaches for the opposition with his outstanding skating ability.

Up front, Riley Barber and Mike Sgarbossa are both established AHL snipers who reached the 30-goal in the regular season and grabbed the goal scoring headlines.

But it's the veteran centerman, Jayson Megna, who often gets overshadowed by his teammates but never goes unnoticed by the opposition, who is the glue that helps bring all together with his versatility and lead-by-example style of play.

Megna, who has played a combined 113 games in the NHL with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Vancouver Canucks and New York Rangers, signed with the Bears' parent club the Washington Capitals last summer. He made the Caps out of training camp, but was ultimately assigned to the Bears early in the season before appearing in any games with them.

After arriving in Chocolatetown, Megna became a roster mainstay, appearing in every regular season game after he arrived, with the exception of the meaningless season finale in which he sat out along with many other roster regulars.

Despite often being put into a checking role by the coaching staff, where his focus is more on stopping the opposition from scoring, the crafty Megna, who possesses a smooth skating stride and an abundance of speed, still found a nose for the net in garnering 20 goals for the Bears, a mark that he says means a lot to him.

"This one of the toughest leagues in the world to score goals in,” said Megna, whose career high is 26 set in 2014-15 with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. "When you get 20, it says a lot about your team and your linemates, and I’m very happy to have achieved that mark this season."

Not possessing a particularly hard shot but obviously a pair of soft hands, Megna is normally positioned just outside the crease area where he is often seen dueling in intense one-on-one battles for position with burly blueliners who often outsize him. This all means there is normally a heavy price to pay for each of the career high eight times he lit the lamp on the PP, but even in enduring the pain to reach the new personal high, he still was right back down to ice level, acknowledging it as a team effort and attributing his increased production to more ice time and capitalizing on more chances than he has in the past when afforded extra-man time.

Stick on the ice, Megna prepares to net his 20th.
Photo by: Cory Lyons
Twitter: @CoryLyonsAHL
Instagram: @corylyonsphoto

"It’s a combination of the personnel that we have, and I think we’ve been really solid all year on the PP. We’ve got a lot of good playmakers on our power play, and depending upon the spot that you’re in, you just need to keep your stick on the ice and be ready. I give a lot of the credit to the playmakers that we have on this squad."

On the other side of the special team coin, Megna is also heavily counted upon to shut down the opposition power play on the penalty kill. It would figure that with a PK unit that features him along with fellow speedsters Beck Malenstyn, Shane Gersich and Nathan Walker, that the Bears would have registered more than three shorties on the season.

Megna's speed backs off a Bridgeport defender.
Photo by: Cory Lyons
Twitter: @CoryLyonsAHL
Instagram: @corylyonsphoto

"I don’t think it’s from a lack of chances though”, said Megna, born in Fort Lauderdale,  Florida. “I wouldn’t necessarily say we’ve        dialed it down, but we changed things up on the from what we did earlier in the season  when we were in that rut, and we’re definitely  playing a little more conservatively on the kill  than we did then. I’d agree I think we should have more with the guys we have on the PK, but it’s been just about the lack of execution and not the absence of opportunities."

The Bears' regular season, from a first half free-fall, to a steady and, at times, meteoric second half rise has been well documented, but it's a merely a memory now as they enter the post-season.

"The odds surely were not in our favor after the first half of our season, but we had a belief that things would get better, and if we stuck to the game plan and started to get to the place where we knew we could play, we would have success. That 17-game run is certainly one of the craziest runs I’ve ever been on. It was a special year, it was a lot of things that I haven’t seen in my career, and I’ve been around for seven years. We have a really special group in here and we have great things ahead of us,” said Megna, hungry for his first playoff action since the spring of 2015.

Think it’s foolish to think that if at the end of this post-season journey that the Bears are about to embark on culminates with them capturing their 12th Calder Cup with Jayson "Man in the Middle” Megna leading the charge? If so, ponder this, who would have been foolish enough a few months ago to gamble that they would even be on this playoff road that will ultimately end with the crowning of the Calder Cup Champion?