“Last night, looking at the numbers, it just makes me want to puke, to be honest. It’s the worst I’ve seen since I’ve been here. It’s unacceptable, we were down to the last second to get one point, maybe two. We have to look at the way we’re playing. It’s been two games in a row, we had a conversation with the players and I hope I got their attention. I told them, ‘If you guys don’t want to work tonight, we’ll find out how hard you need to work in practice.'”
Hershey Bears head coach did not mince words ahead of the team’s game on Saturday night against the Bridgeport Islanders. Despite entering play with seven wins and three losses, Nelson wants more out of his hockey club entering the second month of the season. It all came to a head after a heartbreaking loss to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins with the game-winning goal finding twine with less than a second left on the clock. Saturday’s game offered the Bears a chance to right the ship before a full week between games.
On An Island
Nelson’s comments seem to be taken from Herb Brooks’s playbook, minus keeping the players out after the game to run sprints after Friday’s game. The Bears took the ice against an Islanders team that hadn’t played in a week’s time and are hungry to get out of the bottom of the division. A scrappy first period saw the two teams trade goals, as Logan Day answered a goal from Samuel Asselin just after a power play expired. The deadlock carried into the third period with no break in sight.
It was a tightly played game across the board, with neither team giving up an inch on quality opportunities. It’d take a total team effort and some hard work to walk away with two points, and Nelson’s Bears rose to the occasion. Hershey’s top power play unit went to work with some great movement and shots in the zone, eventually freeing the puck to Chase Priskie for a blast past a helpless Jakub Skarek to claim the lead. It took Hershey only 25 seconds to add to it as Virginia natives Joe Snively and Alex Limoges combined for the latter’s second goal of the season.
Goaltender Clay Stevenson took the crease and picked up nicely from his first shutout one week ago. He has a combined 58 saves on his last 59 shots faced to collect his third win of the campaign, matching his mark from a year ago. Hershey has had the luxury of utilizing him and Hunter Shepard in these tricky situations as the team’s duo continue to hone their skills.
Resounding Response
It’s the second straight time on Giant Center ice that Priskie has tallied the game-winner, and Limoges earned first star honors with a goal and an assist. Hershey enters this extended break at a record of 8-3-0-0, an impressive mark on its own merit, but Nelson’s drive to make his club better amongst a lot of positives shows why he’s had so much success behind the bench.
“I think they rose to the challenge today,” Nelson said of his team’s performance. “We had to nip that in the bud after yesterday’s debacle. We had a firm conversation this morning, and the guys responded. It was good that they did, if they didn’t there would be an issue. It wasn’t perfect by any means, our execution is still off, but the work ethic is there.”
The Bears will get back to work at practice later this week to further hone their game back into the place it was a week ago. After a stretch of three games in four days, Hershey has had plenty of hockey and can now take the time to prepare ahead of a home-and-home set with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. This week has been a learning experience for the new additions to Hershey’s lineup and the team’s first bump in the road. Saturday’s response demonstrates this group has the swagger to live up to the expectations from their bench boss.
