Hershey returned to action tonight as the Bears took on the Springfield Thunderbirds for Pink The Rink Night, part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Spencer Smallman made his return to the ice this season after missing opening weekend due to an upper body injury.
It was also the season debuts tonight for Ludwig Persson and Leon Muggli, as well as the professional debut for Patrick Thomas. The 2023 4th Round pick by the Capitals made his first appearance in Chocolate and White, playing on the left wing on a line with Ilya Protas and Graeme Clarke.
Nicky Leivermann missed out again due to a lower body injury, while two new names were added to the unavailable list. Louie Belpedio missed out tonight due to personal reasons while Ivan Miroshnichenko was out because of an upper body injury.
Matt Strome and Jon McDonald returned to the lineup after being scratched last Sunday, while Clay Stevenson got the start in net.
Game Takeaways
- The Bears came out quick against the Thunderbirds tonight. After getting outshot in the first on opening night and then tying the Crunch in shots on Sunday in the first, Hershey outshot Springfield 12-5 in the first tonight. Quick starts will be important for Hershey this season.
- It paid off on the scoreboard for Hershey too. Sheldon Rempal got his first goal as a Bear off a lovely drop pass by Spencer Smallman, who got on the scoresheet in his first game back with the assist.
- Continuing the night of firsts, Patrick Thomas put home his first career professional goal off a nice pass from Ilya Protas, which was Ilya’s first professional point in his own right. Protas would also add his first professional goal, with an empty netter to make it 4-1 Bears in the third period.
- The Bears second line of Thomas-Protas-Clarke impressed coach Derek King. They were maybe the Bears best line of the night and you can watch Coach King’s comments below from the postgame press conference on how that line performed.
- Hershey got hemmed in during the second, getting outshot 13-4. A big part of that was the Bears facing nearly 6 straight minutes of penalty kill time. Hershey was able to kill off the first two, part of which was a five-on-three. But Nikita Alexandrov tipped home a shot past Clay Stevenson for the Thunderbirds only goal of the night with under thirty seconds to go on the last penalty kill of that stretch.
- Speaking of Stevenson, Coach King called his play “unbelievable”. He stopped 22 of 23 shots faced tonight.
- Hershey’s fourth line tonight consisted of 6’2″, 205 pound Dalton Smith, 6’4″, 206 pound Matt Strome and 6’6″, 223 pound rookie Eriks Mateiko. That is a plethora of riches size wise for Hershey and all three threw the body around well tonight.
- Bogdan Trineyev and Henrik Rybinski were put back together tonight with Spencer Smallman back in the lineup. They connected for the Bears third goal, with Trineyev finding Rybinski to provide the big insurance goal.
- Ryan Chesley scored with what I think was .1 seconds left on the clock to make it 5-1. He sent the puck nearly the entirety of the ice into the empty net for his first goal of the season.
- Couple of postgame facts: Tonight’s win is Head Coach Derek King’s 100th career win as a Head Coach across the AHL and NHL. Hershey got zero powerplay opportunities tonight- that’s a first for the Bears since a April 4th game at Lehigh Valley last season. Hershey won that game 2-1. Finally, this was Hershey’s FOURTEENTH straight home win over Springfield, going back to a March 13th, 2019 5-3 victory over the Thunderbirds. The Bears will have a chance to make it fifteen straight tomorrow.
The Chocolate Roar 