Bears Rule Monarchs 01.24.09

A night after suffering a disappointing shootout setback against their arch rivals, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, the Hershey Bears responded in royal fashion with a 2-1 crowning of the Manchester Monarchs on Saturday night at Giant Center.

In the first few minutes of the first period, in what would turn out to be the case in every period, the Bears struggled to create offense. However, a physical encounter between former Monarch enforcer, Kip Brennan, and current Monarch enforcer, Kevin Westgarth, ignited a spark under the Bears’ offense.

Brennan, a healthy scratch in nine of 16 games since returning to Hershey from Finland in late December, including Friday night’s tilt against the baby Pens, dropped the mitts with  Westgarth at 3:48, after taking exception to  Westgarth’s run at Sami Lepisto.

According to Bears’ head coach, Bob Woods, Brennan’s impressive performance in the bout with Westgrath, who had knocked out the Philadelphia Phantoms’ Garrett Stoltz on Friday night, was a key to the victory.

“It was huge. You see or hear what he (Westgarth) did in Philadelphia. Kipper didn’t hesitate one bit; he went right after him,” said Woods, who turned 40 on Saturday. “He did very well against him, and that sends a message. It gets the crowd into it, it gets our bench into it, and it sends a message to their bench that we are not going to get pushed around. It was a big part of the game.”

Less than a minute after the Brennan-Westgarth tussle, penalties to Manchester’s Gabe Gauthier and Davis Drewiske 30 seconds apart gave Hershey a 5-on-3 power play.

Forty-five seconds into the two man advantage, Hershey took a 1-0 lead on Keith Aucoin’s 17^th goal of the season at 5:35. Aucoin, after taking a cross-ice pass from Alexandre Giroux, launched a looping wrist shot that eluded Manchester goaltender, Jonathan Bernier.

“When it hit my stick, it rolled up on edge, and I kind of muffed it, almost like a change-up,” said Aucoin, the AHL’s leading point producer. “Fortunately for me, it rolled off his back and went in.”

An early penalty to Bryan Helmer helped Manchester get off to a strong start in the period. The Monarchs nearly capitalized on the power play with only a heads-up play by Tyler Sloan, sweeping a deflection off Aucoin’s skate out of danger, avoiding the game tying goal.

Just after the expiration of the Helmer penalty, Bears’ goaltender, Michal Neuvirth’s flashy glove save on a slapshot bid by Manchester’s Matt Moulson kept the visitors off of the scoreboard. Neuvirth, who excelled earlier in the season in net for the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays before getting the call to Hershey where he struggled in early, has looked markedly more comfortable in his last few starts after making the adjustment from the slower pace of the ECHL.

“For sure.” said Neuvirth of the pace adjustment. “I’m getting used to it.  Every game I’m feeling better, and just working hard.”

With Manchester enjoying a 5-on-3 power play, Alec Martinez struck at 6:19 to tie the game at 1-1. Gauthier, who played a big part in the goal, squeezing Jay Beagle’s attempted clearing pass against the boards and keeping the puck in the Hershey zone, picked up the secondary assist on the Martinez marker.

At the promotional timeout at 10:12, Manchester’s offense, fueled by Hershey’s frequent trips to the penalty box, enjoyed a 14-4 second period shot advantage. Woods concurred that the penalties affected his club in a big way.

“The penalties, it’s the biggest thing, it screws up our whole rhythm. We are a good five-on-five team when everybody’s involved. You are using the same guys (when you take the penalties), and the other guys are sitting there and it’s tough to play,” said Woods. “We don’t have any slugs out there that can sit there and get their shift every ten or fifteen minutes. We’ve got guys that need to be out there every five minutes, and anytime that gets disrupted, it affects us. That’s why we have to be more disciplined and stay out of the box.”

Testing the patience of the sold out Giant Center crowd, the home standing Bears did not get their first shot of the third period until the 9:26 mark; however Alexandre Giroux rewarded the fans’ patience by putting the shot behind Bernier.

Giroux, after receiving a multi-zone pass from Keith Aucoin in full stride, fought off the defensive efforts on Manchester’s Davis Drewiske with one hand, while sliding a puck under the blocker of Bernier with his other hand. Aucoin, who normally passes to Giroux from a much shorter distance, resorted to both his veteran saavy and his long-range radar to find his target.

“I think they were changing and I saw a lane under the forward’s stick,”said Aucoin, who has assisted on 24 of Giroux’s AHL leading 36 goals. “I knew if I could get it to him, and sneak it through the guy’s stick, he had a chance for a breakaway.”

Shortly after the Giroux goal, Hershey’s Jay Beagle and Manchester’s Joe Piskula dropped the gloves in the Manchester zone. Piskula, although able to draw a trickle of blood from Beagle, came out on the short end of the decision, leaving a huge amount of blood on the ice, after bleeding heavily from the facial area.

“I think it was from the last punch that I threw,” said Beagle, whose lone fight last season was a scrap with former Bear, Lawrence Nycholat, in Binghamton  “We both connected with some good ones.  I didn’t really see the blood until we got up, and I was bleeding from the nose, too, so I didn’t know who was leaking.”

When asked, Beagle, who also fought Nick Johnson on Friday night, said he did not think twice about getting involved in either tussle, even after only recently returning to the lineup after lengthy absence due to a concussion.

“No, I try to play the same way. You can’t go out there and be intimidated, or not sure about your head,” said Beagle. “That’s why I took so long (to come back), to make sure I was coming back at 100%–so I could play my game. I try not to think about my head while I’m playing.”

Neuvirth and the Bears defensive corps combined to thwart Manchester’s efforts to tie the game in the last minutes or regulation, earning Neuvirth his third AHL victory.

Although expecting to travel south after appearing in the ECHL All-Star extravaganza in Reading last week, Neuvirth took full advantage of the two weekend starts, after a groin problem shelved the weekend’s expected starter, Daren Machesney.

“I wasn’t expecting it (the back-to-back starts),” said Neuvirth. “I went to the ECHL All Star game and I was expecting to get sent down to South Carolina, so it was a big surprise for me to get called back up.  It’s nice to get two starts in a row, and I’m glad I got the win today.”