The Albany River Rats, who scored four unanswered third period goals at Giant Center on Saturday, picked up right where they left off on Wednesday, scoring four unanswered first period goals on their way to a 7-2 win over the Hershey Bears.
Head coach, Bob Woods’ club, while still clinging to first place in the AHL, suffered their first three game losing streak of the season in the setback.
Michael Ryan, Albany’s leading scorer against the Bears in this season’s series entering the game, spearheaded his team’s offensive onslaught in the first period when he netted the first two goals of the game. Jerome Samson and Josef Melichar also added first period strikes to send the Bears’ goaltender, Simeon Varlamov, to an early shower after the conclusion of the period. Varlamov departed after giving up four goals on fifteen shots.
Varlamov’s successor, Daren Machesney, dropped to the ice after being hit high on the first shot he faced in the second period, a rising slapshot from Albany’s Jakub Petruzalek at 2:04. While able to shake off the affects of that shot, Machesney was unable to prevent Ryan from registering his third goal of the game at 4:38, making the score 5-0.
Former River Rat, Keith Aucoin finally broke Hershey’s goose egg on the scoreboard when he breezed a high shot by the glove hand of Albany goaltender, Justin Peters at 15:23.
Seconds before the end of the period, Albany struck again when Petruzalek, sprung from his cage after serving his tripping sentence, beat Machesney on a breakaway at 19:46.
Keeping his scoring trend alive, Hershey’s Alexandre Giroux scored the first goal of the third stanza at 4:24 to cut Albany’s lead to 6-2. Giroux, blazing the back of the net for the 12th straight game, is now within two games of the all time AHL record for scoring in consecutive games. The current record is held by Brett Hull, who tallied in 14 straight games.
Samson’s second strike of the game at 10:43 finished out the scoring for the evening, giving head coach, Jeff Daniels’ club, the 7-2 victory, their 5th win in six outings.