Albany’s Michael Ryan tied the game at one with his 10th goal of the season, a power play goal at 14:04.
Andrew Gordon, while sliding on his knees, gave Hershey the lead at 1:57 of the second period, redirecting a Greg Amadio point shot past Albany goaltender, Justin Peters.
“I tried to make sure I had a screen in front, and he (Amadio) threw a nice low shot to my forehand,” said Gordon, who has scored in three of the four meetings between the divisional rivals. “ I don’t know if I got
cross-checked or if I toe-picked or if there was even anybody around me, but I managed to reach back and get a tip on it. I didn’t even see it go in, but if I heard the crowd I was going to stay down and if I didn’t, I was going to get up and go to the bench.”
Recreating a scenario from Friday night’s Washington Capitals game, when Bryan Helmer’s long outlet pass figured prominently into a highlight reel goal by Alexander Ovechkin, Helmer launched a pass to Bears’ forward Quintin Laing, who then shuffled a pretty cross ice pass to Kyle Wilson who found the back of the net. This goal at 6:04 gave Hershey a comfortable 3-1 lead.
Referee Chris Cozzan awarded a penalty shot to Albany’s Jakub Petruzalek when he ruled that Greg Amadio’s defensive attempt to stop Petruzalek denied the Albany forward a reasonable scoring chance (Rule 57.3). Amadio, who confessed that he was a little cloudy on the criteria in awarding a penalty shot, did admit to committing an infraction.
“I don’t know what the rule is exactly, but I slashed his stick and broke it and thought maybe I’d get a slashing penalty, but I guess I did take away his scoring opportunity when I broke his stick,” said Amadio.
However, the Bears did not absorb the brunt of the penalty shot, thanks to the aggressive goaltending approach of their rookie net minder, Michal Neuvirth, who denied Petruzalek’s bid.
“Sometimes in practice I try that (poke checking the puck off the stick of the opposing shooter) and when I saw his head was down, I just tried it and I’m glad I did it and stopped the penalty shot.”
Neuvirth, who struggled at times in the loss to Binghamton, his AHL debut, was noticeably more comfortable in Sunday’s game, thanks in part to a pre game talk with head coach, Bob Woods.
“It gave me some confidence,” said Neuvirth, who is second only to his goaltending partner, Bobby Goepfert in the ECHL in Goals Against Average. “I felt kind of bad after the game yesterday, but I put that behind me.”
Keith Aucoin capped off the second period scoring with a power play goal at 19:55, giving Hershey a 4-1 lead entering the third period.
“I got a big goal with 4 seconds left in the second and that was huge going into the third period,” said the veteran Aucoin, who saw signs of hope despite the unit’s recent struggles. “The last couple games I thought our power play has gotten a lot of chances and we’ve gotten a lot of shots. The puck just hasn’t gone in for us.”
In the first half of the third period, Neuvirth preserved Hershey’s three goal lead by denying quality scoring bids from Albany’s Brad Herauf and Mike Angelidis.
Albany made it interesting, scoring two goals within 31 seconds of each other in the last three minutes of the game. However, Chris Bourque’s empty net goal at 19:47 ensured the Bears their league leading 23rd victory of the season.