The Hershey Bears are moving on to the Atlantic Division Finals for the third straight year. In a decisive Game Five against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, the defending champions took a 4-2 win on home ice. Much as they did in Game Four, the Bears built a big lead but had to defend it down to the buzzer. Hershey moves on to play the Charlotte Checkers for the second time in three seasons. Hunter Shepard returned to the net and delivered the win with 19 saves.
Strong Start for Smallman and Co.
Hershey struck first for an essential goal to start the scoring. The Bears killed off the first penalty of the night and immediately countered at even strength. Hershey’s top line of Hendrix Lapierre, Alex Limoges, and Spencer Smallman went to work. Limoges got the puck in front of the net, but had it poked back to Smallman. The forward capitalized on the chaos and got the near sellout crowd of 10,421 on their feet and roaring.
Hershey built on the lead before the period’s end. Luke Philp freed the puck from a Phantoms defender, springing Matt Strome on the rush with Riley Sutter. Strome fed Sutter, who beat the outstretched Cal Petersen to give Hershey a 2-0 lead after one period. Hershey again went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen, with Philp filling in on the fourth line for this particular shift.
The two teams played a defensive second period with not a lot of offensive chances to speak of. Hershey was able to get a key goal late that proved to be the difference-maker in the game. Garrett Roe beat out an icing call and fed Sutter trailing him. Sutter put the puck on net and found a seam through Petersen to give Hershey a 3-0 lead after two periods of play.
Third Period Thrills
Much as it happened on Friday, the Phantoms pushed to get back in the game. Lehigh Valley got just what the doctor ordered as Anthony Richard tallied on the power play 2:08 into the final frame. It planted the seeds of a comeback with a lot of time remaining in regulation.
The Phantoms would then cut the lead to a single goal with a tally from Hunter McDonald with just under six minutes to play. Lehigh Valley would pull Petersen and press with nine total shots in the third period. However, Hershey would stand tall, and Bogdan Trineyev would slide into the net with the puck to ice the game on the empty net.
Neither team pulled off a comeback win after trailing from the first goal. Dating back to the regular season, the team that scored first won 14 of the 15 total matchups. Hershey held on to win their ninth consecutive playoff series, a new record in the AHL. The Bears earned a date with the Charlotte Checkers, who advanced in a decisive game earlier in the day.
“The changes paid off,” Bears head coach Todd Nelson said. “I thought the guys came ready to play the last couple of games. I want to give credit where credit’s due, Lehigh (Valley)’s a hell of a team. It was a hell of a series; their guys never quit. They’re well-coached, they did a great job, and we consider ourselves a pretty good hockey team, but that was a war.”
Bears Buy-In
Hershey turned a 2-1 series deficit into a 3-2 win upon completion of Sunday’s game. The Bears eliminated the Phantoms for the second consecutive year, though this year’s iteration was much closer. Ian Laperriere’s squad showed vast improvement and nearly took the defending champions to extra time. As the Philadelphia Flyers continue to add prospects, the rivalry will only continue to heat up in the future.
“That’s a really good hockey team,” Nelson said. “We talked about it as coaches that, if we got through this series, we’d be battle-tested. I was concerned at the start of the series. Our guys got through it; they found the one gear I was looking for.”
“I told (Laperriere) that he did a hell of a job with his team this year, how they improved. They gave us everything that we could handle, (Game Five) could have gone either way. I told him that I respected the job he and his coaching staff did. A good coach always gets his team to play hard, and he had his team playing hard.”
“I think the guys just realized it and it finally clicked in,” Nelson said of his team’s buy-in. “The last couple games from what I saw from our team we were playing predictable to each other. We’re not on our own page out there, we’re playing the team game. I just told the guys to trust the system and if it’s not working, we’ll tweak it and do whatever. But I thought the guys stuck with it and it was a total team effort, right from our goaltender on out.”
It will be another tough outing against Charlotte. Hershey will start on the road in a 2-3 series format due to the distance between the teams. The next round will get started at Bojangles Coliseum on May 16 and 17 before the series shifts to Hershey on May 21. If needed, the other two games in Hershey will be on May 22 and 24. The two teams split the regular season series with four wins each, making another intriguing set to look back on.
