Bears Score First and Often

The Hershey Bears did not score until four minutes and 30 seconds of the second period in last night’s grueling overtime game against the Albany River Rats in Albany when Alexandre Giroux lit the lamp.  However, Saturday night at Giant Center, Giroux found himself at the forefront of the Bears’ early first period offensive onslaught, assisting on the first goal of the game by Graham Mink at 4:12 into the contest, and later adding two goals of his own as the Bears cruised to a 9-0 win over the Philadelphia Phantoms.

“It was a crazy period,” said Giroux, who is tied for the league lead in goal scoring with sixteen goals.  “Everything I was doing, I was doing right.  Aucoin’s a guy who feeds me and Minker works hard and that gives me space on the ice.  It was a good first couple shifts and set the tone for the game.”

Scoring became commonplace in the first period, and Greg Amadio added his first goal of the season at 13:48 with a blue line blast, giving the Bears a 4-0 lead to take to the locker room, and starting a trend which saw two of his den mates also picking up their first tallies of the year. Darren Reid scored at 2:33 of the second period, not only marking his first of the year, but also giving the Bears the bragging rights of being the first team in the league to reach the 100-goal plateau.  For the former Phantom, the goal was a welcome relief in his injury-riddled season,

“It was an awful lot of weight off my shoulders.  You kind of wait for it. You can’t get down; you have to keep pushing forward and try to get it,” Reid said.  “I actually practiced this morning on that shot.”

The next “firsts” came when Andrew Joudrey found the back of the net for the first time this season at 11:21 of the second period, with an assist by Steve Pinizzotto, his first point of the season. 

“Pinizzotto made a great play.  He beat their defenseman in and then took him off the puck with a check.  The puck came around the net and I was coming off the bench.  He made a great pass to me and I made a quick release and the goalie wasn’t ready for it,” said Joudrey, who also added a pair of assists for a career-best three point game.

Bears’ goaltender, Daren Machesney, who did not face his first shot until 16:50 of the first period, improved to 8-3-0-0 on the season, stopping all 13 shots he faced.  Machesney, winner of his last three starts, two of which were shutouts, has allowed only one goal in those three starts.