The Hershey Bears, who scored just 11 seconds into the game last night, did not score until 37 seconds into the second period, but still managed to find a way to come up with a victory on Sunday evening when they downed the Lake Erie Monsters in a shoot out win, 3-2. Hershey’s win, their 10th straight home triumph, left them one short of the franchise record of 11 consecutive home wins, which was set by the club in the 1963-64 season.
Even though the shots on goal were 17-10 in Hershey’s favor at the the end of the first period, they went to the locker room trailing 1-0. Long time Bears’ nemesis, Jesse Boulerice, netted the game’s first goal at 3:50, beating Hershey’s Simeon Varlamov with a wrist shot from between the circles. The end of the first marked the first time this season the Bears have trailed a game at the end of 20 minutes of play at Giant Center.
Hershey veteran, Quintin Laing, commented that despite the gaudy shot total, his club was not impressed by the quality of their shots, and that they made it a topic of conversation during the first intermission.
“We had 17 shots, but we didn’t feel like we played that well. A lot of our shots were from the outside and we didn’t have a lot of good scoring chances within the 10 foot range of the goalie. He (Monsters goalie, Jason Bacashihua) was playing really well, and we figured it was going to be a goal off a deflection or a rebound or something like that would beat him. We talked about getting more quality shots and less perimeter shots,” Laing said.
Laing, stationed high in the slot, led by example only 37 seconds into the second period when he redirected a shot by Greg Amadio behind Bacashihua, to tie the game.
“I tend to lean towards getting away from the defenseman and not having him bother you (down low) or hitting you in the back or hitting your stick,”he said. “When you’re up high like that, you’re on your own and you can just concentrate on the puck.”
After Keith Aucoin turned over the puck at the Lake Erie blue line, the Monsters struck again at 14:53 when Kyle Cumiskey finished off an odd man sequence and found the back of the net to give his team a 2-1 lead.
With less than two minutes left in the second period, and with Lake Erie’s Alex Penner in the penalty box, Hershey snapped their 0-for-32 power play drought when Kyle Wilson lit the lamp at 18:31 after a beautiful set up by Matthieu Perreault, tying the score at two.
“I was looking for Gordon first and I saw Wilson open in the slot. He’s a great shooter so I just found the lane and gave it to him and he scored,” said Perreault.
Perreault, though surprised to get the tap to join the struggling power play unit, made the most of his opportunity.
“I was happy he put me out there and I just tried to work really hard so he gives me more chances, and it happened that we scored,” said Perreault, who collected his 5th power play assist of the campaign.
Stopping a combined 23 shots in the 3rd period and in overtime, many of the quality variety, Bacashihua and Varlamov matched each other save-for-save to send the game into a shootout to determine who would emerge victorious.
After four rounds of the shootout, each team had one successful attempt on their side of the slate, with Hershey’s Chris Bourque and Lake Erie’s Chris Durno scoring for their respective clubs, setting the stage for the dramatic fifth round. The Bears’ Andrew Gordon, who was 0-for-3 last season in the shootout, was chosen to represent his team in the final round. Gordon’s bid, which initially looked to be unsuccessful, found it’s way over the goal line with a little help from Bacashihua. Gordon provided some insight into his thought process in this pressured situation.
“I picked up my speed a little bit and tried to get him moving with me to make him match my speed and I think that’s what pushed him back because he had to get his feet moving. When he went down, he slid backwards and the puck slid with him. I lucked out on that one.”
As the old sports axiom goes, “You’ve gotta be good to be lucky.”