Hershey returned to the ice tonight looking to continue their momentum from last night’s 5-1 win over the Thunderbirds. It was the rematch tonight as the Bears looked to complete the weekend sweep over Springfield and improve to 2-1-1 on the year.
As fictional baseball manager Lou Brown once said “Ok, we won a game yesterday. If we win today, it’s called two in a row.”
Hershey would only make one change from last night’s win. Justin Nachbaur came in for Dalton Smith on the fourth line with Eriks Mateiko and Matt Strome. Somehow that line became bigger- Nachbaur is an inch taller than Smith at 6’3″.
Clay Stevenson also got the start for his first back to back weekend of the season. Leivermann, Belpedio and Miroshnichenko all missed out again for the same reason the missed last evenings game.
Springfield made minor changes as well- but one of them was the readdiction of Kale Kessy into the lineup. Kessy makes his first appearance back in Hershey after missing out on chances with Iowa and Syracuse. The Thunderbirds also made a change in net as Vadim Zherenko got the start.
Postgame Takeaways
- It was a rough start for the Bears compared to the flying start they had last night. Hershey didn’t record their first shot until exactly halfway through the first period. The Bears were already down 1-0 at that point in the period.
- The final score says 5-1, but Hunter Skinner’s goal with 24 seconds left in the first period felt like a back breaker for this young team. The Bears looked much better in the latter half of the first, but never bounced back after that late goal from Springfield.
- Ludwig Persson impressed this weekend. His presence was felt every time he was on the ice. It hasn’t shown up on the scoresheet yet, but he fit well on the third line with Henrik Rybinski and Bogadan Trineyev this weekend.
- That third line also got the only goal of the night. Rybinski beat Zherenko from in front for his second goal of the season. A strong start to the season for Rybinski, as he leads the Bears in points through the first four games.
- Patrick Thomas and Leon Muggli also impressed in their season debuts this weekend. Coach King will have some tough lineup decisions when Miroshnichenko, Belpedio and (probably) Frank all become available again.
- Clay Stevenson got both games this weekend. Head Coach Derek King said to us postgame that he “wanted to see how (Stevenson) would react to it. I thought he did a good job with it. No fault to him.”
- Ryan Chelsey ended up with a -3 tonight. A rough night for the rookie that he will surely learn and bounce back from.
- Kale Kessy returned to Hershey for the first time since leaving. A nice welcome back video was played and Kessy dropped the gloves with Justin Nachbaur within the first four minutes of the game.
- Hershey has a new postgame celebration outfit this year. Out goes the Bear Head, in comes an outfit donated by the Hershey Fire Company for the “Hero of the Game”. You can see Clay Stevenson awarded with it here.
- The Bears hit the road for the first time this season on Friday as they travel up the road to Allentown to play the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The first road trip for this group and it’s to a hostile environment. The rookies will learn quick about what this rivalry means. The Chocolate Roar will be in attendance.
- Finally- a reminder to the fan base that this group is still coming together. It’s a lot of new pieces and a lot of rookies. The growth is already starting to show and this group will have success. Just have a bit of patience.
The Chocolate Roar 