After falling behind by two goals by the middle of the first period, the Binghamton Senators were likely thinking they had the Hershey Bears right where they wanted them, given Hershey’s recent history of surrendering leads, and their striking comeback win in Wednesday night’s game.
It turns out, they were right, as they eventually prevailed over the Bears, 5-4, with an overtime win on Friday night at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena.
The Bears, whose microwave-like offense lit the lamp just 15 seconds into the contest just two days before, took the conventional oven-like approach on this night, not registering a shot until 6:55 into the game. However, once the offense got cooking, things heated up quickly with a pair of quick goals by Alexandre Giroux and Kyle Wilson within 1:29 of each other, giving Hershey a 2-0 lead.
Hershey’s penalty killing unit, ranked 26th in the league entering the contest, faced the mighty challenge of Binghamton’s power play, which is ranked 1st in the AHL, for the first time when Bryan Helmer was whistled off for hooking at 10:26.
Josh Hennessy, who scored the goal that chased Daren Machesney from the Hershey net on Wednesday evening, beat tonight’s starter, Kris Mayotte, at 12:03 to get Binghamton on the board.
Hennessy’s goal was scored with referee, Frederic L’Ecuyer, signaling an impending hooking call to Kyle Wilson. By AHL rules, Wilson’s penalty was not washed away with the goal, and Wilson was sent to the penalty box. Senators’ captain, Denis Hamel, converted a Peter Regin rebound with Wilson in the “sin bin”, tying the game at 2.
Wilson redeemed himself with his second goal of the game at 18:30, and gave Hershey a 3-2 lead. Wilson, outmaneuvering defenseman, Mattias Karlsson, to the left of Binghamton netminder, Jeff Glass, coaxed the puck behind Glass for his 24th goal of the season. Oskar Osala, scoreless in his past 16 games, registered an assist on the goal.
The second period began with 3:38 left in Matt Carkner’s double minor, giving the Bears an early opportunity to add to their one goal lead. After Hershey failing to capitalize on their advantage, the Senators struck for their second power play goal of the night just over a minute after the expiration of Carkner’s penalty, with Regin netting his 2nd goal of the night.
Regin’s goal marked the end of Mayotte’s outing, as he was replaced by Daren Machesney after allowing three goals on eight shots. Machesney, who was removed from Wednesday night’s game, chose to view the relief role as a chance to right his recent rough outings.
“There was nothing to lose, nothing to be scared of. I just wanted to go out and play and have fun while doing so,” Machesney said. “It’s one step at a time. When you’re struggling, you can’t go leaps and bounds. It’s a step ladder and you just take one step at a time and you’ll get back up to form.”
Machesney said he made no fundamental changes in his game or approach to cause Friday’s solid showing.
“Goaltending is a funny thing. If you could explain why things go your way and why things don’t, you’d be one of the smartest men and the best goalie in the world,” said Machesney. “It’s a weird thing, and the biggest thing is that you have to believe in yourself and your teammates. I‘ve been playing this game long enough and I‘ve had enough success at it, that I know I can play at this level and be a good goaltender at this level.”
Machesney, like Mayotte, was victimized by Regin at 11:29 of the second period, eight seconds after Bears’ defenseman, Tyler Sloan, was released from his sentence for slashing. Regin’s goal, which tied the game at four, was the last goal scored in regulation.
After a series of Hershey turnovers, Regin completed his hat trick with a backhand shot over a sprawling Machesney at 3:13.
Notably unhappy after the game, Hershey head coach, Bob Woods, was perturbed by his team’s generosity to the home team.
“We had a lot of turnovers the whole game; it wasn’t just overtime,” said Woods. “It was just frustrating, the mistakes that we made. We can blame goaltending, and do whatever we want, but still we make mistakes.”
Determined not to allow recent events to drag him down, Machesney chose the “glass- half-full” approach to the setback.
“Even though we lost tonight, we have to take the positives out of it. The sun will come up tomorrow, and we’ll look forward to that.”