It looked pretty good for the Hershey Bears at the 1:22 mark of the third period. Ethen Frank had just been awarded a goal on a reviewed play that could have gone either way, extending Hershey’s lead to 5-1. The way the game had gone to that point, it felt like an extra line on the stat sheet. It ended up serving as the game-winner on this night as the Bridgeport Islanders rattled off three consecutive goals but saw their rally fall short in a 5-4 decision at Giant Center.
The Kids Are Alright
Hershey’s youth carried their scoring in this game. After Mike Vecchione opened the scoring late in the first, Ryan Hofer tallied his first American Hockey League goal with eight seconds on the clock in the opening stanza. After a strong forecheck from Riley Sutter, the puck landed on Hofer’s stick, and the young forward fired a perfect shot past Jakub Skarek for a moment he’ll never forget.
Bridgeport cut into the lead early in the second period as Karson Kuhlman took two cracks at a rebound on Hershey goaltender Hunter Shepard. Although Shepard made two saves, the second shot fluttered in the air and landed over the line to cut the lead in half. The Bears responded minutes later as Nicky Leivermann earned his first AHL assist on a brilliant lob pass to Ivan Miroshnichenko on a breakaway, and the rookie made no mistake for his fourth of the season.
The Bears added another goal in the middle stanza on a delayed call when Mike Sgarbossa fed Bogdan Trineyev for the latter’s third of the campaign. It was a monster play by Sgarbossa, who picked up the puck off the boards, protected it, and found Trineyev for the goal. Sgarbossa had a trio of assists in this game, earning him first star honors. He’d pick up his third assist of the night feeding Frank on the rush, and the shot seemed to hang around the net before trickling in as the net came off its mooring. After a lengthy review, the play would be deemed a good goal.
Uno Reverse
That’s when the game changed pace. Jeff Kubiak got a good break when his spinning shot clicked off of a defender’s skate and found the net. It was followed by a goal from Dennis Cholowski less than two minutes later and capped off by a nice give-and-go between Ruslan Iskhakov and Otto Koivula resulting in the latter’s first of the season. Suddenly, the deficit was just one goal with plenty of time to go.
Bridgeport outshot Hershey by a margin of 18-3 in the third period, with the Bears not registering a shot on goal after the four-minute mark of the final frame. The final period was enough to move the overall margin in Bridgeport’s favor, 35-28. It’s a stretch that Bears head coach Todd Nelson was not happy with when taking the game into consideration.
“I liked our first two periods,” Nelson said. “I thought they were solid. In the third, once we scored the fifth goal, the guys stopped playing. Bridgeport scored, they had momentum, now it’s going to be a dogfight to the end. It came pretty close to going to overtime. The guys have to learn from this. We went through this situation last year, the first three months, we have to understand that we need to keep on playing. They outbattled us in the third period and tomorrow’s game is going to be really difficult as a result.”
Race Ya There
The two teams boarded their respective buses right after the game to head north and do it all again at Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport. Friday’s game marked the midpoint of the regular season series between the two teams with the Bears winning all three of the matchups to this point. Saturday’s rematch is an important test to see if the Chocolate and White can respond for their coach.
It’s the second straight game that a furious rally has fallen short for the Islanders, with a similar fate befalling them earlier in the week against the Syracuse Crunch. Both clubs will be highly motivated for a win in the rematch, and although it’s only November, the Islanders don’t want to fall any further out of the playoff picture. It’s already a six-point gap between them and the final spot in the playoffs, were the dance to start today. Although they’re not out of it yet, it’s a gap they won’t want to widen any further.
For the Bears, their hot start of 11-4-0-0 is great on paper, but it’s the latest in a series of atypical wins from their standard game plan. As Nelson mentioned, the takeaway is that this team has growth to achieve still. Hershey is not known as a team that outscores its opponents to win, and Friday was the team’s third straight game allowing four goals. It’s a trend they’ll aim to reverse starting on Saturday night on the road.
