BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings
HARTFORD, CT – A strong three-goal second period allowed the Hershey Bears to seize control of the game and skate away with a 4-1 win Saturday night at the XL Center.
The two-game battle between these two division rivals left the Bears in a much stronger position now seven points ahead of the third-place Wolf Pack.
Providence with a win over Springfield 4-2 are now five ahead of them and Charlotte got a point in a 3-2 overtime loss to Utica narrowing the lead between them to four points.
“We played according to plan in the first we played really well. (We) almost had a goal on the powerplay, and had some other good opportunities. J-F came up with some huge saves in the first, its what we expected.
Then in the second period, we let that first goal affect us and took a lot of momentum away from us,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch.
The Pack concludes the weekend play in Springfield tomorrow afternoon at 3 PM.
The Bears scored the game’s first goal in the first minute of the second period took control of the game.
Brian Pinho at the right point let one go Berube made the save, but he could not control the rebound and cover it the Bears Matt Moulson with his long stick got one crack at it and the second sent the puck into the net for his 21st goal of the regular season at 52 seconds.
“Last night we played well and we started out pretty well, but once they got the first one we just kinda combusted. We just kinda gave up,” said an annoyed captain Steven Fogarty “just playing hard and doing the right things and the only we can control is our attitude and effort and they just weren’t there we could see it and feel it on the bench.”
The Bears in short order took a 2-0 lead scoring 11 seconds into a powerplay just their second of the game.
Daniel Sprong at the right point took a Bobby Nardella pass and quickly fired a good hard low shot that Philippe Maillet free from his check and the Quebec native with a perfect tip scored on his mon-ami monsieur Berube depositing his 16th of the season far side.
“We gave up just one goal and changed our entire game the way we played our structure the things that have helped us gain success so far this year.
It’s a mindset thing you can’t change things the effort wasn’t there. We had a little push there in the third, but obviously not enough.”
The Wolf Pack playing way too passive in a five on five situation, playing like a PK. Matt Beleskey sought to change the direction got into a scrap unfortunately it was Hershey who kept the momentum.
“That’s the type of guy Beleskey is he saw what was going on the bench tried to get us going and it worked, but we went ahead and combusted like that (again),” said Fogarty.
Once again Bobby Nardella got the scoring sequence started receiving the pass from Eric Burgdorfer a the right point getting the puck to Brian Pinho as he came off the right-wing half wall.
Then just before he was going to get nailed by Mason Geersten he snapped a 35 footer top shelf over Berube’s left shoulder to make it 3-0 silencing a hearty crowd of 4,814.
“They’re a good team there gonna get their chances, but we allowed too many,” said Knoblauch.
His captain put it more straight forward.
“They going to have their puck possession and get their chances,
We have to play down in their end, and we did not do enough of that.”
That was all for Berube facing 18 shots and in came Adam Huska.
“I did that because we needed to try to change things at that point,” said Knoblauch.
The current offense output is not enough to get back into first place.
“One goal in five (periods) just isn’t enough in this league there a good team, but so are we. Were not just not getting enough second chances, not getting guys to the net.
We weren’t generating enough off the rush and we have proven all year long we can score goals. We gotta get back to playing the right way defensively and we can get guys going to the net better.”
All too often Hershey had the puck the Wolf Pack didn’t. The Bears were able to secure the puck and make rushes up ice and gain easy entry into the Pack end of the ice.
As one fan acidly texted me during the game “why don’t (they) let them stroll into the offensive zone !!
Well put and wells aid.
The Bears continued the quality chances as Bobby Nardella, Mike Sgarbossa and Shane Gemish had point-blank shots.
In the third period, that Wolf Pack broke Vitek Vanecek’s bid for a second straight shutout at 12:03.
After botching a three on one break, Nick Jones with his shot missing the net, the puck remained in the Hershey zone.
Patrick Newell got the puck from Greg Chase and in the right-wing faceoff circle sent a smooth backhand pass to Jones who one-timed his ninth past the Bears netminder at 12:03.
It was Chase’s first ever Wolf Pack point.
Hershey’s Tyler Lewington’s empty netter with a second to go closed out scoring for the night.
The first period was much like last night’s tight-checking and opportunities that came via turnovers.
Hershey got an early break at 1:22 off a turnover and Daniel Sprong who has played very well since being acquired from San Diego last week was stoned by Berube.
The loss of Tim Gettinger and Boo Nieves forced some interesting line combos as Ryan Dmowski was with Steven Fogarty and Vinni Lettieri to start the game. Dmowski had the first shot and the first hit of the game.
Beck Malenstyn had another chance for Hershey and Sean McBride on the left-wing answered back with one at 7:04.
At 12:58 another gift turnover went to Hershey’s Shane Gersich and he went in all alone, but Berube made a gorgeous butterfly glove save to keep the game scoreless.
The Wolf Pack powerplay continues its struggles doing well on the first half of the first chance, but didn’t sustain the same puck movement in the second half of it.
As part of the Wolf Pack’s Military Appreciation weekend, the Wolf Pack wore their camouflage-style jerseys for the game.
In the first intermission, a new class for the Army, Marines and Coast Guard took oaths to begin their training. Congrats to all!
LINES:
Fogarty-Lettieri-Dmowski
O’Regan-Newell-Kravtsov
Beleskey-Jones-Gropp
McBride-Ronning-Chase
LoVerde-Hajek
Ebert-Geersten
Raddysh-Crawley
SCRATCHES:
Tim Gettinger – Upper-Body – Day-To-Day
Boo Nieves – Upper-Body – Day-To-Day
Yegor Rykov – Healthy
Gabriel Fontaine – Shoulder Surgery – Season-Ending
NOTES:
Nieves was a last-minute scratch forcing Knoblauch to do some serious line juggling and when Beleskey was tossed early in the third for his second fight of the game they were down a forward for the rest of the third period.
Gettinger looks doubtful for tomorrow and might not be available till next weekend.
UCONN hockey will travel to Orono, Maine to play the Hockey East quarterfinals next weekend as the fifth seed to play the number four Black Bears.
Providence’s Dan Vladar finally surpassed Igor Shesterkin in best GAA at 1.83 and Igor still has second-best save percentage at .934
The Wolf Pack record since his recall January 7th is 10-10-5 (W-L-OTL).
Among the best plus-minus in the AHL two ex-Pack players ay the fourth and fifth spots Hubert Labrie (Belleville) plus 25 and Cole Schneider (Milwaukee) plus 23.
Wolf Pack fan Jersey of the night: #27 Ryan Graves (Colorado), #5 CT Whale Blake Parlett (EHC Munich Germany-DEL), #42 Jeff State, #43 Dan Catenacci (HC Bolzano Italy-EBEL), and #6 Joel Bouchard (Head coach AHL Laval Rocket).
NEPSAC prep school playoffs all finals will be Sunday at Trinity College at the Koppel Community Center.
In a big upset, Salisbury Prep knocked off Avon Old Farms 4-3 in overtime at Jennings-Fairchild Rink. They will play Dexter School who knocked off Berkshire Scholl 3-0 at 5 PM.
In the Large Division, Loomis Chaffe (Windsor) knocked Brunswick School (Greenwich) 5-2 and will play Cushing Academy 4-2 winners over St. Sebastian’s 4-2 at 2:30 PM for the title.
In the Small School division Pomfret shutout Groton 4-0 and will play Gunnery (Washington) 5-2 winners over The Rivers School at 12:30 PM
