The Bears defeated the Monsters by a score of 5-4 to take home the victory
The Hershey Bears defeated the Cleveland Monsters in overtime Thursday night to take Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.
In a back and forth match, the Bears were able to walk away with a 5-4 overtime victory.
In the first period, it was Hershey that came out firing on all cylinders. The Bears scored the only goal of the period off the stick of Ethen Frank just under five minutes into the game.
Holding the Monsters to three shots, the Bears were able to create numerous chances but couldn't put more than one past Cleveland.
Although the Monsters didn't generate many more shots in the second period (were held to five), they were able to take the lead less than five minutes into the second off goals by Hunter McKown and Alex Whelan.
A short momentum boost for the Monsters, the Bears were able to answer back just over a minute later thanks to Aaron Ness' first goal of the playoffs.
With the game all tied up and the period progressing towards the end, the Monsters took their fourth penalty of the night.
An interference call on Stanislav Svozil, the penalty proved costly as Chase Priskie was able to score on the power play to restore Hershey's lead heading into the intermission.
Entering the third period still down by one, the Monsters took two more penalties by the time seven minutes had run out in the period.
Although they were able to kill the first one off, their lack of discipline cost them again as Hendrix Lapierre scored his fourth goal of the playoffs to put the Bears up two.
As the period continued to get closer to the end, it looked as though Hershey would pull Game 1 out in regulation but Aaron Ness took a slashing call with just over two minutes left.
On the ensuing power play, the Monsters were able to get one back as Trey Fix-Wolansky was credited with his first of the playoffs.
With momentum on their side and the net pulled, David Jiricek tied the game with twenty seconds left to send an entertaining game to overtime.
With both teams coming out in the extra frame determined to take the early series lead, it was the Bears who were able to dig a little deeper and take home the victory thanks to a Mike Vecchione odd-man rush goal.
Showing solid team resilience, the Monsters will look to tie the series up in Game 2 on Saturday.
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