The Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins, riding the hot goaltending of Adam Berkhoel, and decisively winning the special teams’ showdown, defeated the Hershey Bears on Saturday night at the Wachovia Arena, 4-1, taking a 3-2 lead in the best of seven East
Division Finals.
Blitzed by the Penguins for three goals in the first period on Friday night, the Bears withstood an early surge off the opening faceoff, before regaining their composure and even generating much of the offense through the opening seven minutes of the contest, before Greg Amadio’s retaliatory roughing penalty at 8:25 started the unraveling.
With Amadio serving his sentence, Chris Minard, the baby Pens’ leading goal scorer in the regular season and post-season, struck on the power play at 8:55 to give the home team a 1-0 lead.
A botched line change by the Chocolate and White at 12:32 led to a bench minor penalty, and ultimately the second goal of the game and period, a power play strike by Luca Caputi at 13:43.
The suddenly vulnerable Hershey penalty-killing unit, which did not allow a single strike against in their first round sweep of the Philadelphia Phantoms, has been victimized on 8 of the Penguins’ 17 goals scored in the series.
“They are just not doing anything fancy, they are just throwing pucks on the net and winning battles,” said Bears’ head coach, Bob Woods. “I think on our power play, we’re not winning the battles. We are losing a lot of battles, whether it’s to keep possession or to track down loose pucks.”
Hershey forward, Darren Reid, appearing in his first playoff contest of the season, wristed a shot by Pens’ netminder, Adam Berkhoel, at 5:19 of the second period to cut the Bears’ deficit to 2-1 and to put a halt to Berkhoel’s shutout hopes.
“He (Berkhoel) is a great goalie, and there’s not too many of those shots that get by him,” said Reid. It was a nice play by Joudrey to bring it out wide. I just put everything I had behind it and went in.”
Reid, the five year AHL veteran, who celebrated his 26th birthday on Friday, offered his sentiment on whether the Wachovia Arena is the toughest visiting building to play in.
“It is; their fans can be very loud,” Reid said. Everybody knows that when you come to Wilkes-Barre, it’s going to be a tough battle.”
Nick Johnson’s power play goal at 15:08 of the second period was the Penguins’ response to the Reid goal, re-establishing their two-goal lead at 3-1.
Jeff Taffe’s empty net, shorthanded goal, with less than a minute to play in regulation, finished out the goal scoring for the event.
The series shifts back down I-81 to Hershey’s Giant Center for game six on Sunday afternoon, with the Bears needing a win to force a game seven at the same venue on Tuesday evening.
Reid, after the game, said that the Hershey’s fans have the potential to be just as big a factor in helping the Bears rebound from their dire predicament, as the Penguins’ fans were to the success of their team during the previous three games.
“I think our fans are very important to our club. If we get on them early (on Sunday) and get the first goal, hopefully, we can keep on rolling with our fans behind us,” said Reid.
If Reid and his teammates fail to get the tide rolling back into their favor with a win on Sunday, they will be rolling back to Giant Center on Monday to say their season-ending goodbyes.