The Bears were back in action tonight, facing off against the Syracuse Crunch as they began their last home set of the regular season.

Same rules apply for the Bears as they did Saturday- win and they would be division champs. Lose, and a matching result from the Charlotte Checkers would still give the Bears the one seed in the Atlantic.

In terms of the lineup, Jake Massie and Ethan Bear returned to the lineup, Hunter Shepard was returned from Washington and started, along with Clay Stevenson getting called up to Washington.

First Period Recap

The Bears got the hot start they were missing the last couple games. Not even five minutes in, a strong wrister from the point by Nicky Leivermann was met with a picture perfect deflection by Hendrix Lapierre made it 1-0 Bears.

Hunter Shepard would keep it that way with a couple of key left pad saves right in front of the net. It was good to see Shep in a groove after a tough appearance for Washington last week.

Jake Massie looked great in his first game action since the winter. Jake makes this d-core that much better.

Andrew Perrott also got in a fight, with Roman Schmidt, who’s 7 inches taller than Perrott. Perrott hung with him and arguably won the fight. He’s making himself a real key part of this team with the physicality he brings.

Hershey would get a couple more chances in the period, but none got past Syracuse goalie Brandon Halverson and the score stayed a 1-0 Bears advantage heading into the second.

Second Period Recap

This period would not go as well for the Bears. Syracuse would hem the Bears in their own zone from the start and it would not get better until a four on four, where Brennan Saulnier and Dylan Duke were called for coinciding minors for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Right out of that though, the Crunch would get their goal. Gabriel Szturc would finish off a bit of a broken play, after a Jake Massie poke check went right back to the stick of a Syracuse player, and made it 1-1.

Hershey would get a power play chance and fail to capitalize, where as Syracuse would get a chance right after the Bears power play ended and would capitalize. Gabriel Dumont cleaned up in front after a sharp angle shot came right back out in front, and the Crunch took a 2-1 lead.

Hershey would go to a late penalty kill, but would do their job with the time remaining in the second. They’d have 34 seconds left to kill to start the third.

Third Period and OT Recap

The Bears succeeded in killing off that last 34 seconds of PK time to start the third and were on the front foot from there.

They kept the pressure on Syracuse, and it paid off in a tying goal from Alex Limoges. The goal went to Limo, but it was all because of the work of Hendrix Lapierre. After winning a couple board battles down low, Lapierre poke checked the Syracuse defensemen breaking out, kept the puck in the zone, made an inch perfect saucer pass to Limoges, who made no mistake to make it 2-2.

The Bears would come closest to getting the third goal, that being an Ivan Miroshnichenko shot from the right circle that Halvorsen barely got his blocker on to keep the game tied.

We would head to OT, but sadly it wouldn’t take long for the Crunch to end it. A miscommunication by Vecchione and Chase Priskie saw Vecchione make a back pass to no one that Conor Sheary (yes, that Conor Sheary) was able to capitalize on to end the game.

Postgame Quotables

“He’s moving his feet well, and he’s checking well. Looks like he never missed a beat to be quite honest. I thought he played a very strong game.” – Head Coach Todd Nelson on Jake Massie’s return to play from tonight.

“I really enjoyed it. I feel like right from the get go, from our first shift we knew. Even in practice we knew we were going to click together. I feel like we all bring something different, but we’re all pretty smart at the same time and we know how to find each other.” – Hendrix Lapierre on playing with Alex Limoges and Spencer Smallman.