The last two times Houston Aeros’ goaltender, Barry Brust, faced the Hershey Bears at Giant Center, he entered the game in a relief role for the Manchester Monarchs during the 2006-07 season, but tonight he could have used some relief himself as the Bears rocketed past the Aeros, 5-1.
Hershey’s Greg Amadio, who leads the club with 14 fighting majors, and Houston’s Mitch Love set the tone of the game early when they dropped the gloves at 2:07 of the first period. The encounter was just the first of a season-high five fights for the Bears.
Oskar Osala’s 18th goal of the season at 7:34 was the first tally of the game. Even though both of his linemates factored into the goal, Matthieu Perreault was the only one who made it to the score sheet with an assist.
“I was actually looking for a pass first,” said Osala. “I went to pass it to Bouchard, but then there was no pass and the goalie gave me a lot of room on the glove, so I knew I needed to shoot.”
With Hershey on the penalty kill as a result of a delay of game penalty assessed to Bears’ net minder, Simeon Varlamov, red-hot Alexandre Giroux turned a defensive situation into offensive success when he slid a short-handed shot past Brust at 12:26, giving Hershey a 2-0 lead.
“It was a 2-on-1 and I think the defense overplayed Aucoin,” said Giroux, who attained the 25 goal benchmark for the 4th time in his career. “I was going to pass right away, but I saw this space to move in. The goalie thought I was going to pass, but I gave him the backhand fake and he bit.”
After a face-off win by Andrew Joudrey in the Houston zone, Andrew Gordon blasted a bullet that beat Brust at 8:13 of the second period to give the Bears a 3-0 cushion.
Houston, who didn’t register a shot until 13:40 of the stanza, finally figured out Varlamov when Jesse Schultz scored at 18:22 with his team on the power play.
It took only 40 seconds for the Bears to regain their three goal lead when Andrew Joudrey managed to maneuver his own rebound in the space behind Brust for his 4th goal of the season. Joudrey, who potted the game-winner last night in Norfolk, also scored his first two goals of the campaign in back-to-back games.
Francois Bouchard, Hershey’s number 22, finished out the scoring at 2:22 to give the Chocolate and White the 5-1 margin of victory. Bouchard, lurking in the huge shadow of the 6’4” Oskar Osala, who carried the puck into Houston’s half of the ice, picked up a loose puck and bested Brust.
Bouchard’s goal marked the 11th time this season that the Bears have seen at least five different players score in the same game.
hey, can you give a better update – more details? like what happened with Graham Mink, the cheapshot on Aucoin, etc etc. What you provided is nice but not that interesting nor informative. We can get the same information from any other regular game recap or the boxscore or game summary. If you’re going to blog about a game, then you should offer up more details so more people get interested in visiting this site. Thanks!