Chris Bourque, seen here at practice, got his 80th and 81st points on the season in this afternoon’s game against Albany (Kyle Mace, 2011)
In a rematch from last night, the Albany Devils and Hershey Bears faced off for two important points. Hershey trying to cut their magic number down to 14, Albany trying to get that final, eight playoff spot. Hershey would get those two points and the win over Albany, 4-1.
Yesterday’s AHL Clear Day deadline has come and gone. From now til the end of the season, these will be the players in the Bears lineup. Exceptions of course for call-ups and injuries. Take a look at who made the list after the jump.
Braden Holtby faced the Norfolk Admirals tonight. Photo by John Wright.
As we get closer to the end of the season, games against big teams like the Norfolk Admirals become even more important.
The Bears owned the first period. They out-shot the Admirals, stopped a Norfolk power play, and maintained the majority of puck possession. They did everything right except they couldn’t find the back of the net.
Keith Aucoin celebrates goal with the Caps. Photo hijacked from our sister blog, RMNB.
Happy Leap Day! Hopefully the Bears can use this extra day of the year to get a much needed win over division leading Norfolk. As always, you can follow our tweets of the action on Twitter. As for what happened this week, well there isn’t much to brag about. The Bears lost to Rochester, Lake Erie, and Norfolk. They now sit in 3rd place in the East Division a full 8 points behind Norfolk. They do have one game in hand against Norfolk. Since the playoffs this year are determined by conference standings (with the 3 division leaders automatically in) we should look at the conference as well. Currently, the Bears are in 5th place. Norfolk leads the conference and the Bears are 9 points ahead of the 9th place team. There’s still a lot of hockey to be played and the Bears have room to move either way. Hopefully it’s up. Look for more about the standings and AHL Clear Day in the coming days.
Now on to this week’s highlights.
Hershey’s first line of all-stars. Photo by Kyle Mace.
It was a so-so week in the land of the chocolate and white. The Bears traveled to Norfolk for two games before the All-Star Classic. Friday saw a continuation of their losing ways, however they made their way back into the win column on Saturday. Boyd Kane, Keith Aucoin and Chris Bourque then made their way to Atlantic City to participate in the AHL All-Star Classic. You can see highlights from the skills competition here. Unfortunately, they were all held off the scoring sheet in the game. The beginning of the week brought recall news. Cody Eakin was called up to Washington as well Joel Rechlicz.
More on the Rechlicz call up after the break…
Photo from theahl.com
Here we go! First Chocolate Fix of the new year! This is a big week for the Bears. Friday they will play in the AHL Outdoor Classic at Citizen’s Bank Park in Philadelphia. I know I’m getting excited for this one and I’m pretty sure you are too. The Bears had mixed results in the last week of the year. They had a tough loss to the Penguins, but then had a nice win to finish the calendar year against the Admirals. Special jerseys were worn for New Year’s Eve and the Bears will wear special ones for the game Friday night, too. You can see them both here. Lastly, we put together a list of our top 11 moments from 2011.
Outdoor happenings…
The front of the New Years Eve jerseys for this Saturday’s game (Photo by Kyle Mace)
The Hershey Bears have another special jersey night coming up and they are very…interesting. The New Years Eve jerseys this year include the words “Happy New Year” along with “2012” on the front showing the upcoming year. The Bear on the front also has a party hat on it’s head to give it that “I’m ready to party” look. The back has a clock with the time showing midnight. Both sides have balloons, streamers, and fireworks (what every New Years Eve party should have.)
Tonight began the first three games in three days of the season for the Bears. Stage one: take on the Albany Devils on the road.
For the first time this season, the Bears gave up the first goal of the game. Steve Zalewski scored on a breakaway. Patrick Wellar tried to catch up to him but couldn’t make it in time. Braden Holtby tried his best to stand Zalewski up but the shot went high and into the net.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the Bears to counter with a goal of their own. Keith Aucoin took an Albany turnover and set up Matt Ford, who was all alone in front of the goal. Tie game.
If the Bears can continue to dominate on the man advantage, opponents should be afraid. It’s no secret that Chris Bourque has the magic touch for the power play. Tonight, he put a shot on goal during Hershey’s first power play. That shot took a funny bounce off of Cody Eakin and Jeff Frazee had no chance of stopping it. 2-1 after twenty minutes.
The Baby Pens celebrate one of many goals against the Bears tonight. Photo by Kyle Mace
For your average teams, a game with two teams who already have secured seeds in the playoffs would be just another game to get through.
Someone should tell the Bears and Penguins this, although I don’t think they’d hear you over the sound of their hatred for each other.
It didn’t take long for everyone to realize that this game would be just as physical as yesterday’s, if not moreso. Just about five minutes in, Ashton Rome had a big hit on Zach Sill. Sill had a few words for Rome and then they dropped the gloves. It was definitely dominated by Rome though, who brought the crowd to their feet after delivering some huge blows.
It didn’t take long for Patrick Wellar and Jesse Boulerice to follow suit and fight near center ice. Wellar had the advantage early but Boulerice got the takedown.
Despite several power plays, the Bears just could not find the back of the net. This is mostly the result of John Curry’s stunning saves. Just when it seemed like the period would end scoreless, the Penguins kicked it up a notch during the final minute of play. The Bears botched several attempts to clear the zone and all of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton’s offense got Braden Holtby moving. 1-0 Penguins.
The second period started off a little quieter but it only took thirty seconds for Hershey to be in a 3-0 hole. Brett Sterling was positioned right in front of Holtby and chipped the puck past Holtby. It was a good shot and there wasn’t much he could do about it.
The next goal stung a bit more. The Penguins were on a power play with Souray in the box. Holtby came out of his crease a little to make a save but the rebound came right out to Nick Petersen. Holtby was too far out and Petersen practically had an empty net.
With all the momentum on their side, the Penguins kept it going. Bryan Lerg fired a fast shot from the above the face-off circle that went right past Hershey.
In one period, the game went from about equal to domination by the Penguins. The Bears did a better job during the third period of holding the Penguins back.
It took 58 minutes for the Bears to finally break the shutout. Andrew Gordon was easily the best player on the ice for the Bears tonight. He was robbed on several occasions but he was eventually able to beat Curry.
Just 31 seconds later, Maxime Lacroix, who also had several good chances throughout the game, closed in on the net and cut the Penguins’ lead in half.
It was good to see these guys rewarded for their play in a game that some guys had mailed in. Unfortunately, it was too little too late as the Bears lost 4-2. They remain winless against the Penguins on home ice.
Keith Aucoin puts a backhand wraparound into the goal. Photo by Kyle Mace
Hershey came out and tried to quickly take control of the game. For the most part, they did just that. They were able to gain and maintain the offensive zone for long periods of time. They were cycling the puck and making great efforts to keep the puck in the zone. Unfortunately, the Devils were able to get on the board first. Keith Aucoin answered at 12:27 to tie the game at one. Only a few minutes later, Andrew Gordon was able to convert an Aucoin pass into a goal to take the lead going into the second.
Early in the second period, Gordon attempted a shot from the faceoff circle. He broke his stick on the shot from the circle, but he almost put the blade of the sitck in the net. He got a good chuckle out of it as he came off the ice to get a new stick. Albany once again struck first (and second) in this period. Just before the end of the period, Dmitry Orlov scored the only Bears goal of the period to take it back to a tie.
In the third period things went from hockey to weird in about 2.2 seconds. There was a small delay in the start of the period due to Devils goaltender, Jeff Frazee, complaining about the condition of the ice in his crease. Interesting that it was suddenly bad after 2 full periods of hockey. Once that was fixed, play started for the period. The game went back and forth as did scoring initially. Hershey went ahead on a Brian Willsie goal. After the Willsie goal, an Albany player went over to the celebration and had some words with the Bears players. Some pushing and shoving followed. Another Albany player came crashing into the pile and that started everything. This was the first ‘line brawl’ that I had seen in a several years. Albany tied the score once again only a few minutes later. Not quite half way through the period, Boyd Kane would score what would eventually the game winner. It was after that goal that Frazee decided that he still didn’t like the ice in his crease. A lengthly delay ensued of about 45 minutes. Eventually play would resume, but it wasn’t good news for Albany. Kane would put the Bears back on top and Maxime Lacroix scored the insurance goal. That was followed by an empty-netter by Kane.