The Hershey Bears have been building all season to become a team positioned for a Calder Cup run. They have a younger group that is maturing into a contender and is now in the middle of a tight series with their rival, the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins.
This series is shaping up to be a good one with two well-coached teams, plenty of prospects, and two great goaltenders. The Penguins took the first game 4-2 and proved why they are the favorites. The Penguins also proved that this series will have plenty of battles. “I like the way we competed and battled, we didn’t stop,” Bears head coach Derek King mentioned after the game. The key for the Bears to even the score and flip the momentum is to win the war and fight until the end. “We just got to battle, we just got to compete like we did,” King added.
The question is how the Bears respond, especially against a team that finished the season with a better record and is the presumed favorite in this matchup. The adjustments are pivotal, as is how the Bears look at the end of the series. “We just don’t know how to quit, so we just keep going and are always in the fight,” Henrik Rybinski noted after Game One. The message in the room is that this team can compete. Now, it’s about their ability to find the players who can step up and deliver.
Hershey Must Lean on Skill to Beat Murashov
If there’s one weakness for Sergei Murashov, and arguably the one thing preventing him from playing at the next level, it’s that he can’t stop an NHL-caliber shot. In fairness, not many goaltenders can, especially with the skill level and shot accuracy in the game these days. Most American Hockey League teams lack the talent to generate those shots on the net. The Bears have a few players who can and have throughout the season.
The trio of Andrew Cristall, Bogdan Trineyev, and Ilya Protas can score on anyone. Protas, who was named the AHL’s Rookie of the Year, scored 29 goals thanks to his shot that can catch goaltenders by surprise and thread the needle. It’s how he found the back of the net in Game One to put the Bears on the board.
That trio has formed a dynamic top line for the Bears. The downside is that it’s the only line generating offense in the playoffs. So, King must lean on them for goals. The problem is that he doesn’t want to overwork them, especially early on in the series. “The young guys are putting up points but I don’t want to tire them out; it’s a long series,” King stated after the loss, which is a sentiment he’s had throughout the playoffs. He doesn’t want to lean on a line or two and double shift forwards even with the team trailing. “I just roll them. I try not to match lines. It just takes away from the rhythm of the game,” He noted after Game Two victory over the Bridgeport Islanders, a game where he didn’t match lines and the move worked as the Bears won 5-2.
The other challenge for the Bears is how they’ll generate offense when their top line isn’t on the ice. The plan, at least for the time being, is to get to the net and find dirty-area goals, the type of goals that teams usually find in the playoffs. The problem is that the Penguins are prepared for that type of game, and in Game One, they stepped up and cleaned up the net front and the loose pucks.
Bears Need a Spark From The Blue Line
A noticeable on-ice difference between the Bears this season and the past three is the blue line. They don’t have a true number one defenseman, a player like Ethan Bear or Chase Priskie to lean on in all situations.
The Bears don’t have that defenseman and lack a scoring presence in the offensive zone. Last season, Bear and Priskie had 22 goals and 59 assists combined. This season, Louie Belpedio and Corey Schueneman led the Bears' blue line with only 15 goals and 50 assists. They don’t have that defenseman who drives play and opens things up.
Maybe Belpedio becomes that player in the playoffs. The veteran was signed this summer to be an anchor of the defense, and while he’s known for his play in the defensive zone, this series can be the one in which he makes an impact in the offensive zone. David Gucciardi, a rookie who has stepped up down the stretch, scored the game-winning goal in the first game of the series against the Bridgeport Islanders. The Bears need someone to step up and add that spark in a series where goals will be hard to come by, and the puck will go low to high for scoring chances.
The Penalties Remain Hershey’s Undoing
The penalties, bad habits, and mistakes have cost the Bears all season. It’s been a theme since the first week, and the same problems keep popping up at the worst times. The Bears have grown up since the start of the season but the mistakes show how young this team is.
The playoffs are when those bad habits can rear their ugly head and end a playoff series early. The penalties the Bears took in Game One set them back and had them chasing the game. “Obviously, we want to stay out of the box; they have a good power play,” King noted on a Penguins team that can take advantage of the Bears’ mistakes.
The issue that King and the Bears face is that they want to cut down on the penalties but not at the cost of imposing a physical presence on the Penguins. “I don’t want to take away from us being physical, being hard on guys. It’s playoff hockey,” King stated and it’s a priority to play a physical brand of hockey at this time of the year. “Playoff hockey is always physical so you just gotta use that physicality to provide energy and then keep it going” Rybinski added. The Bears can lean into that style of play. The only question is whether it will keep costing them games or give them momentum. Game Two in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday night will provide an answer.