Any time a team wins the Calder Cup, that season becomes the bar for excellence. This year’s iteration of the Hershey Bears have set a high standard for excellence and have more to their name. The team took a 6-3 win over the Cleveland Monsters on Friday to earn their 45th win of the season. The decision gives Hershey one more win than they had during the regular season a year ago. Wildly enough, the Bears still have 11 games to add to their incredible win count.
Depleted Rosters
Despite a meeting of the top teams hailing from the Atlantic and North Divisions, this game was not quite a playoff preview. Both teams were missing important players on recall to their respective NHL clubs. No team in the league is more affected than Cleveland, who missed five of their six top scorers during Friday’s matchup. Three players who replaced them were signed by the Monsters to professional tryout agreements (PTOs). That suite of players includes Mitchell Lewandowski, who was signed to a PTO earlier in the day.
Hershey is uniquely qualified to sympathize with Cleveland in that regard, similarly missing a bevy of important players in recent time. The Bears lost high-scoring forward Matthew Phillips to recall ahead of game action. Several of the team’s top scorers in the regular season are currently on duty at the NHL level, including center Hendrix Lapierre. Both teams would look vastly different meeting in a hypothetical playoff matchup in the spring.
Trading Blows
Hershey opened up the scoring just under five minutes into the first period. Matt Strome buried a perfect setup from Riley Sutter for his fifth goal of the season. The goal is worth appreciating from multiple angles on the replay as Strome found twine from an extreme angle. Riley Sutter, who has been on fire lately, extends his point streak to four games with an assist. Vincent Iorio picked up the secondary assist, giving him helpers in three straight games.
Cleveland tied the game just over a minute later on a goal for Alex Whelan. Goaltender Clay Stevenson’s errant pass landed on the stick of Stefan Matteau. He and Whelan took a few cracks at beating the outstretched goaltender, with the latter earning his fifth goal of the season. The Monsters started a trend that lasted most of this game, stubbornly hanging around.
Bears Roar on the Road
The Chocolate and White got some inspiration in the period from an unlikely source. Rookie forward Ryan Hofer only had two penalty minutes all season entering Friday. He’d tack on five minutes with his first AHL fight, dropping the mitts with Cole Clayton. Despite taking a few blows, the fight rallied his teammates and sparked them to light the lamp. Hershey tallied twice before the period’s end, with Pierrick Dubé tallying his 26th goal of the campaign. It was a total team effort starting with great puck possession by Jimmy Huntington, who did not earn an assist on the goal. He fed Alex Limoges, who set up Aaron Ness on the near side, and Hershey’s veteran defender set up Dubé for the goal.
Hershey’s other top scorer got into the action next as Ethen Frank scored his 23rd goal of the year. Mike Vecchione carried the puck through the neutral zone and dished it nicely to Joe Snively. Snively found the trailing Frank, whose shot whistled off the post and by Jet Greaves for a 3-1 Hershey edge after two periods. The Bears poured on the pressure, reaching double digits in terms of shots in each period in this game.
Is It a Bird? Is It a Plane? No, It’s Jimmy Huntington!
The Bears got the only goal of the middle stanza as Jimmy Huntington scored his 15th goal of the season. Huntington swiped a shot towards Greaves while losing his footing. The puck took a strange bounce off of a body in front of the goaltender, making the puck hard to track even on replay. It’s been a great recent stretch for Huntington, who welcomed some special fans last weekend, as he adds another goal to his total.
Hershey did find themselves in penalty trouble in this game. Cleveland had six cracks at the power play and eventually solved Stevenson as Jake Gaudet scored his seventh of the year. It’s the first time in eight games that the Bears have allowed a power play goal. Suddenly, the Monsters had some life before a crowd of 11,120 at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse.
Rybinski’s Rewards
If any player deserved a fortunate break for their hard work, it was Bears forward Henrik Rybinski. The second-year pro has succeeded with a larger defensive role in recent time and was due for a goal. He’d find his fourth of the year on a bounce as his pass hit a body and pass by Greaves. Later, he’d unselfishly pass up an empty-net goal to give linemate Bogdan Trineyev his ninth of the year. With a goal and an assist both off of passes, it’s safe to say Rybinski is a selfless teammate.
Before getting to that point, Cleveland once again drew close as Tyler Angle scored his seventh of the season. Angle was able to angle his shot off of a nice pass from Jakub Zboril. Once again, Cleveland was within reach and pulled Greaves to try and draw closer. That’s a tall task against the Bears, who got the empty net goal from Trineyev to seal the deal. Lucas Johansen made a nice play to knock the puck down and feed Rybinski on the goal. Both Johansen and Iorio finished with an assist and plus-four rating each, the best such mark on the ice.
Playoff Positioning
The loss for Cleveland, combined with a win for the Syracuse Crunch, knocks them out of first place courtesy of a tiebreaker. Cleveland still has a seven-point lead over third place Rochester with the decision. The top three teams in the North Division receive a bye from the play-in first round of the Calder Cup Playoffs.
Hershey moves to a record of 45-11-0-5, good for 95 points. The win extends Hershey’s point streak to five games and continues to move the team in a positive direction. Last weekend, head coach Todd Nelson wanted to see his team get back to their standard. The meeting, deemed a “come to Jesus” gathering by Nelson, seems to have produced a better hockey club. It’ll be up to the Bears to prove it again tomorrow when these two teams match up for the final time in the 2023-24 regular season.
