It was quite the pregame show for the Hershey Bears on Saturday night in their first game with standings implications since lifting the Calder Cup months prior. Murals on the concourse, plenty of merchandise, and a fresh look for existing banners greeted the sellout crowd of 10,570 at Giant Center. The Bears raised their 12th Calder Cup Championship banner to the rafters in an emotional pregame ceremony and got right back at it in their title defense. In the opposing corner was the Belleville Senators, who had the unenviable task of playing in that environment but put up a strong effort behind a 30 save shutout for Mads Sogaard in a 3-0 decision.
The Senators roster featured former Bear Garrett Pilon, playing in his first regular season game for a team other than the Chocolate and White on this day. Pilon crossed lines to wear a Hershey sweater one last time during the pregame ceremony in a nice salute to 259 regular season games over five seasons. The Bears were able to present Pilon with his championship ring as well as Hershey graduates Beck Malenstyn, Aliaksei Protas, Connor McMichael, and Lucas Johansen, who were in attendance with Washington Capitals staff. Former forward Sam Anas, who plays in Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League, had his father accept his ring in his place.
Despite plenty of holdovers for the Chocolate and White, there’s still more than enough new faces to warrant some trial and error. Try as they might in the first period, the Bears were unable to find twine with any of 14 shots on goal, with Sogaard taking over the story in the game. Belleville survived the Hershey push and counted with Cole Reinhardt’s first goal of the season to make it 1-0. Penalty trouble in the second period cost the Bears dearly as Nikolas Matinpalo scored his first American Hockey League goal in his first game to double the lead at 2-0.
Hershey pushed in the second half of the game but couldn’t break the goose egg to record Sogaard’s first AHL shutout in dramatic fashion. The Senators travel to Allentown to take on the Lehigh Valley Phantoms on Sunday in a season opening road trip to a pair of destinations they’ll only see once in 2023-24. Hershey head coach Todd Nelson was very clear that his club is in the earliest stages of coming together not unlike last season.
“It was a pretty emotional night” Nelson said. “For a lot of people, it was their first time experiencing that and I thought they did a great job. The guys really enjoyed it. I liked our start, our first period was decent, we could have been up 3-0. Their goalie was outstanding tonight.”
“We have a lot of talent on paper, but right now, we’re not a hockey team yet. We have to mold this group into a hockey team, and it’s going to take time. I was hoping we could squeak this one out because it was an emotional night. I thought maybe we could jump on them out of the start, we had our chances, but it just didn’t work out.”
One of Hershey’s standout players in the game was rookie forward Ivan Miroshnichenko, a highly regarded prospect in the Washington system. The rookie forward was flying in his first game, registering four shots on goal in a variety of situations. He had a breakaway in the first period as well as a number of slap shots on the power play not unlike Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin.
“I think he had eight shot attempts in the first period alone,” Nelson said of the rookie. “I like the fact that he wants to bring it, sometimes guys want to make cute plays or try seam passes but I thought he was one of our best players. He competed hard; he was dangerous. I thought he played well.”
The Bears were without their Calder Cup MVP in goal as Hunter Shepard was unable to play due to illness. Clay Stevenson made 17 saves on 19 shots in the loss after backing up Charlie Lindgren in Washington’s opening game a night prior. Washington’s regular starter, Darcy Kuemper, was unavailable due to the birth of his child that same day, leaving Stevenson to take double duty. The goaltending shakeup may result in the first AHL start for Garin Bjorklund on Sunday evening when the Bears take on the Cleveland Monsters.
