Returning to the town in which some of his greatest AHL accomplishments occurred, Hamilton Bulldogs goaltender, Marc Denis, showed the reason he is still on the NHL radar when he stopped 36 shots, including all 23 in the last 40 minutes, to backstop his team to a 4-2 win over the Hershey Bears Wednesday night at Giant Center.<\/p>\n
Hamilton came out flying with an early shot advantage, propelling three shots on Bears netminder, Daren Machesney, in the first minute of the game, yet still found themselves trailing when Hershey\u2019s Graham Mink put the Bears on the board early, when he found the back of the net at 3:29. Mink, avoiding the congestion created by Giroux\u2019s slick stick handling when he maneuvered the puck around Hamilton defenseman, Alex Henry, gathered in a loose puck and backhanded a shot behind Denis. With this tally, Mink joined teammates Alexandre Giroux and Kyle Wilson in the 20-goal club.<\/p>\n
Forty seven seconds after the Mink goal, Hamilton\u2019s diminutive forward, 5\u20196\u201d David Desharnais came up big for his club, beating Bears\u2019 netminder, Daren Machesney, at 4:16 to tie the game at one.<\/p>\n
Kyle Wilson restored Hershey\u2019s one goal lead at 15:06, with his 21st goal of the campaign. Wilson, after hauling in a pass from the diving Quintin Laing, quickly launched a shot toward the Hamilton net. Wilson\u2019s salvo deflected off the skate of defenseman Dan Jancevski and behind Denis.<\/p>\n
In the waning moments of the first period, Denis denied a point blank backhand by Chris Bourque, to keep it a one-goal game.<\/p>\n
Mink\u2019s penalty at the buzzer at the end of the first period and Francois Bouchard\u2019s delay of game penalty 2:36 into the second period gave the Bulldogs two power plays in the stanza\u2019s early going. The Bears were able to stave of both attempts on the special teams, but surrendered an even strength goal to Bulldogs\u2019 forward, Yanick Lehoux, at 4:42, just six seconds after Bouchard exited the sin bin, to tie the game at two.<\/p>\n
After the teams battled it out on even ground for the next 13 minutes, a fortunate bounce went the Bulldogs\u2019 way when Ryan Russell\u2019s shot clanged off the post and onto the stick of Kyle Chipchura, who promptly chipped the puck into the Hershey cage behind goaltender, Daren Machesney, at 18:02 to give Hamilton the first lead of the evening at 3-2.<\/p>\n
The Bears, 0-for-3 on the power play in the first two periods, had a golden opportunity to even the score early in the third period when they were awarded a 5-on-3 for 44 seconds. However, they squandered the opportunity, never seriously threatening Denis, despite the manpower advantage.<\/p>\n
Hamilton put the game away on their last power play, lucky number seven, when Ryan White scored at 9:15, lofting the puck over sprawling defenseman, Patrick Wellar and Machesney.
\nThough at times it appeared that the Bulldogs were substantially outworking the Bears, head coach, Bob Woods, did not subscribe to that theory.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not at all. I thought it was pretty evenly matched game. Bounces didn\u2019t go our way. One goes off the cross bar for them and lands on Chipchura\u2019s stick and that\u2019s the way it went. It went their direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Woods admitted that there is an issue that has contributed to his team\u2019s recent funk, and offered his solution to the problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cGuys want to get frustrated, get frustrated because guys aren\u2019t shooting. Don\u2019t get frustrated cause guys aren\u2019t passing to you. I think that\u2019s our problem right now; guys get mad if somebody doesn\u2019t pass, but I\u2019m more frustrated when the guys aren\u2019t shooting the puck when they should.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"